


Whatever Choices You Make

by consultingcas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 04, Alternate Season/Series 05, Angel Dean, Angel Sam, Community: deancasbigbang, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2014, Hunter Anna Milton, Hunter Castiel, Hunter Gabriel, M/M, Minor Character Death, reverse!verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 09:21:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2576306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consultingcas/pseuds/consultingcas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Castiel was raised from Hell by unknown forces, dealing with a leather-jacket wearing angel called Dean was not exactly what he had expected. Forced together to try and stop the Apocalypse, the pair soon form an unlikely friendship. Yet destiny has other plans for the angel and his hunter. Dean is hiding secrets which could destroy the fragile trust the two of them share and then there is the mystery of what happened to Dean's long-lost brother, ultimately confronting them both with what they are prepared to sacrifice to defend their family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm seriously indebted to so many people who helped me through the process of writing this fic. 
> 
> My lovely beta, angelofthemoor, who invariably gave helpful advice and more than once influenced various plot points in this story by her thought-provoking questions.
> 
> The dcbb survivors group on tumblr for all their cheerleading and support while brainstorming.
> 
> My incredible artist wifihunters who has produced the most stunning artwork imaginable for this fic, exactly how I pictured those scenes.
> 
> Just to let you know, there is going to be an e-book version of this created soon by the amazing marple-juice.
> 
> Thanks so much for taking the time to help me out, guys, I'd never have got through this story otherwise.

Free will is more complicated than people think. Freedom and choice are all very well, but there are…complications. There always are. Because what if you make the wrong choice? What if you choose the wrong path? Right and wrong aren’t always black and white. I’ve learnt that now. And they always said that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. At least, it was for me. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you my story. Let me tell you everything.

 

…………………………

 

I suppose it all starts with my elder brother. After our parents had been murdered, Gabriel was practically the only family I had left. He was everything I wasn’t. Outgoing and funny, he made friends wherever we went and made a point of enjoying life to the full. I was the tactician, the soldier, nothing more. So when it was a question of whose life was worth more, the answer to me was clear. Gabriel deserved to live. He did not deserve to have his life ended by a demon stabbing him in the back. So I drove out to a crossroads and dealt my soul away for my brother’s life. I will never regret that trade, despite the high price I had to pay for it.

 

The deal was completed exactly as promised. I got a year to spend with my brother before being dragged off to Hell by a pack of hellhounds. Gabriel got the rest of his life to live as he wanted. And Hell got me for forty years. Forty long years. Years of being sliced and carved and cut at in every way imaginable. Years of unimaginable pain until there was practically nothing of me left. And every single day Alistair, Hell’s greatest torturer, would come to me and make me an offer. He would tell me that all my pain could be over. All I would have to do is do him a favour in return. All I would have to do was cut into someone else and watch as they screamed in agony.

 

I resisted him for thirty years.

 

But then I couldn’t do it anymore.

 

God help me, I was too broken to withstand him anymore. So I got off that rack. I got off that rack and tore people’s very souls apart. I remember every single one of them, those people that I destroyed. I remember everything.

 

And the worst part? I didn’t feel anything. I couldn’t feel a damn thing for any of them, for all the suffering I caused. I suppose I was dead inside by that point. And that was my life, for ten long years.

 

But things were about to change. I had yet another poor soul on the hooks when it happened. He was a fellow victim of a demon deal, a man who had sold his soul to cure his wife’s terminal cancer. I think Alistair liked to give me some of the more innocent victims to make me suffer even more emotional torment, reminding me that these people I was torturing had committed no real crime. All they had done, all I had done, was try to save someone. Now we were paying the price for our sacrifice. I was just the weak fool who had broken.

 

I had begun to sharpen the blades for the day’s ritual torments when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a light. I couldn’t help but notice it as there was no real light in Hell. There was a fiery glow from the Pit, but there was no light like this. It was a pure, white light like you’d expect to see from a falling star or the light that you see when you stare directly at the sun. Words couldn’t describe its brilliance. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It may have been far off in the distance, but it was definitely there and getting closer by the minute. Demons were running from the light and I heard those that weren’t quite quick enough screaming. There was no point trying to outrun it: it was coming on too quickly for that. I would undoubtedly suffer the same fate as the demons unfortunate enough to get in its path. I was no better than them, after all.

 

The light came; it surrounded me. I closed my eyes and prepared myself for the agony that was to come. But instead of pain, I felt at peace.

 

I opened my eyes to find myself in a garden, the garden of my old family home. I was a child again, playing with Gabriel. The image changed. There was my father, giving us our first lesson in using a gun, one of the few occasions when we actually got to spend time with him after the death of our mother. I saw Gabriel and me setting off a case of fireworks in a deserted field on the fourth of July in 1996. Then there were flashes of myself and Gabriel saving countless people across many hunts, how we had changed those individuals’ lives for the better. I saw Gabriel standing by a hospital bed when I had been pushed into critical condition after a simple demon possession case went wrong. I saw him praying for the first time in his life, begging to any celestial power that would listen for me to live.

 

Then, darkness.

 

…………

 

I woke up, as though from a deep sleep, to find myself in some kind of enclosed space. It didn’t seem like Hell. There wasn’t the usual sound of screaming and the smell of burning that dominated the Pit. I felt different as well. There was a gnawing sensation in my stomach which I dimly recognised as hunger, and my throat was desperately dry. Souls couldn’t feel physical sensations (excepting pain of course, I had learned that lesson well enough in Hell). I didn’t know how or if it was even possible, but I had the faintest suspicion that I might just be fully human again.

 

Checking in my pockets to find my lighter, I lit it to get a greater bearing on my surroundings. I seemed to be in some kind of thin box made of wood, which shouldn’t be too hard to break out of. I smashed the lid open only to send a bucket load of soil on my head. So I was six feet under, probably wherever Gabriel had decided to bury me and whatever had got me out of Hell couldn’t be bothered dragging my meatsuit out from underground. Fantastic.

 

Forcing myself out of the ground and savouring the feeling of a fresh evening breeze on my face for the first time in decades, I found myself in a wooded clearing. Or at least, it would have been if the surrounding forest hadn’t been felled by some kind of blast. Probably the work of whatever dragged me out of the Pit. There was no doubt in my mind that something powerful had raised me from Perdition. After the hellhounds had finished with me, my chest should have been ripped to shreds yet there wasn’t a scratch on me. The only thing that was different was that I now had a handprint burnt into my left shoulder, a nice souvenir from my mysterious saviour. Given my past experiences with otherworldly creatures, I knew it hadn’t rescued me simply out of the goodness of its heart. It wanted something from me and when the time came, I would have to deal with it. I stumbled out of the forest, heading for the main road in the hope of some signs of civilisation. A gas station with a phone would be my best bet. I needed to let Gabriel know that I was alive. He was in a pretty bad way when I was dragged off by the hellhounds, and he’d spent most of my final year trying to find a way to free me from my contract. The fact that he hadn’t burned my body as was customary for hunters was worrying enough, probably because he still hadn’t lost hope that he could find some way to bring me back. I hoped to God that he was okay.

 

The sight awaiting me when I arrived at the main road scuppered those plans. There was a man standing there, leaning against his car. He looked a bit too purposeful for a normal person who had broken down, and it was too late at night for him to just be enjoying the scenery. My gut instinct, sharpened by a few too many narrow escapes from death over the years, was that he was waiting for me. It didn’t take a genius to work out that this was the bastard who had dragged me out of Hell. Silently damning Gabriel for failing to bury me with any weapons to fend off the mystery monster, I went over to meet him. After all, there was no point in trying to run, and if the guy had taken the trouble to raise me from perdition, he must want me alive. I needed answers. Maybe he could give them to me.

 

As he saw me coming, the guy shot me a devil-may-care grin. “Hey there, Cas. I’m Dean.”

“What are you?” I tried to sound more confident than I felt.

“I’m an Angel of the Lord. I’m the one that dragged your sorry ass out of Hell.”

 

 

……………

 

“You don’t look much like an angel.” His leather jacket and AC/DC t-shirt didn’t seem overly suggestive of the Heavenly Host, even if I wasn’t expecting the full halo and wings routine.

Dean shrugged his shoulders, “Trust me, chuckles, I’m the real deal. I would show you my true form, but I’m guessing you don’t fancy being blinded. You’re lucky I was able to find a vessel so quickly that I was here to meet you after our little sojourn in Hell.”

“So you’re possessing some poor bastard and you expect me to trust you?”

“Relax, he actually prayed for this. Angels can’t possess anyone who doesn’t consent. We’re nice like that.”

This guy was starting to get on my nerves. Maybe it was the cocky grin. Maybe it was his attitude. Probably it was his overconfidence that I would just trust him and we’d drive off together into the sunset.

“Look, I’m not going to buy this whole ‘Angel of the Lord’ bullshit so you might as well come out and tell me what you really are. Angels don’t just wander down into Hell and drag people out. What do you want from me?”

That wiped the smirk off Dean’s face. Now he just looked pissed. Maybe yelling abuse at a powerful supernatural being wasn’t the smartest plan. All of a sudden, the once clear evening was disrupted by the sounds of thunder and the flash of lightning. Amidst the sudden bursts of light, I could have sworn I saw two dark shadows unveil behind Dean. Two shadows in the shape of wings. But, it couldn’t be, he wasn’t…

“Now listen here, you stubborn son of a bitch. You might not think that you’re worth saving, but that doesn’t mean that everyone agrees. God commanded that I save you and Heaven has work for you to do so either you get in my car and shut your mouth, or I’ll knock you out and shove you in the trunk till you do what you’re told. So, what’s it going to be?”

I got in the car.

 

………………………

 

This was a terrible idea. To be honest, I should have guessed from his leather jacket and classic car. Dean liked classic rock. Worse, he liked to sing along off-key at the top of his voice to his favourite songs. I had been forced to suffer Gabriel’s love of Asia often enough over our years of hunting, and his insistence on playing “Heat of the Moment” on repeat for whole journeys had given me a lasting hatred of the genre. Still, when you’re stuck in the car with an all-powerful supernatural being, you can’t really complain about the music choice. The closest I got to complaining was a sigh of annoyance when the first tape started playing, to which Dean responded by snapping, “Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole.”

 

After an hour or so of tuneless mullet rock, Dean finally decided to initiate some kind of conversation. “So aren’t you going to ask where we’re going?”

“Given you threatened to shove me in the trunk of your car if I didn’t shut up, I didn’t think asking questions about our destination was an option.”

Dean chuckled, “Relax, I was only going to do that if you tried to run off. You might as well ask anything you want to know now. It might make things easier when I have to try and convince your brother of my good intentions. He seems like the type to kill me first and ask questions later.”

“We’re going to see Gabriel? Is he alright?” I tried not to let my internal worry show.

“Yeah, I’ve got some good news for you about him. Gabriel’s doing okay. The kid’s staying with some hot hunter chick in South Dakota. I think her name was Anna?” Dean leered appreciatively at the thought, which seemed a little unsympathetic to me given our topic of conversation. I scowled at him. “It’s only a few hours’ drive from where you were buried so we should be there soon. Poor kid took your trip to the Pit hard; he would have done anything to get you out. Heck, I think he pleaded with every crossroads demon that would answer his summons. None of them were dealing, of course. Don’t worry, though, his soul’s safe from Hell’s clutches.”

“I don’t understand your definition of good news.”

“Hey, he’s not doing badly considering his younger brother got dragged to Hell ‘cause of him.”

“Look, he’s my brother. I couldn’t have just left him there. It should have been me who wound up dead in the first place, not him. All I did was put things back into the natural order. Gabriel practically raised me while my father was off God knows where hunting down demons so don’t say I could have lived without him because I couldn’t. Doing nothing would have been as good as killing him.” I was getting seriously pissed at the angel now. “You might think I’m pathetic for selling my soul to save him, but I don’t care what you or anyone else in Heaven thinks. It was worth it, all the suffering in Hell. It was worth it just to know my brother was alive.” Dean had gone dead quiet and if I hadn’t known better, I’d have sworn the look he was giving me was one of sympathy. “If you had a brother who you cared about as much as I care about Gabriel, you’d understand.”

“I do, actually. Or at least, I had a brother like that once.”

“You did? But then why…?”

“His name was Samael.” Dean looked uncomfortable. His brother seemed to be a difficult subject for him to talk about. “All angels are family so we don’t usually have the same close relationships that humans do. Sammy and I were different, though. I practically raised the kid, especially as Dad would disappear off the grid for months at a time with no warning. I would have done pretty much anything for that boy and he would have done the same for me.”

“What happened?”

“I couldn’t save him.”

Dean didn’t need to say anymore. After all, I knew only too well how hard it was to not be able to save the ones you love.

For the first time since we’d met, I actually could relate to Dean. He was just as self-loathing as I was, railing against a world for the unfair hand it had dealt him, crying out for an absent father to come and help him but receiving no response. Gabe and I were an unpleasant reminder of what he had had with Samael, so I shouldn’t really be so surprised at his bitterness. I softened a little.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I don’t need your sympathy.”

The rest of the drive was spent in silence.


	2. Chapter 2

It was good as ever to see the familiar surroundings of Sioux Falls, although slightly painful at the same time. Gabriel and I had grown up here with our father in the salvage yard that had been in our family for generations. It may not have been your classic apple-pie life with Father heading off every other week on a monster hunt and the hunters roped into babysitting duty teaching us the best way to exorcise demons, but it was home. Our house was seen as a base camp for many hunters so our home was always full of guests dropping by to either ask advice on whatever they were hunting or to request backup on a particularly difficult hunt. That’s how we got to know Anna. Her father, Zachariah, was one of our more frequent visitors. Ever since he got into the trade when a demon possession killed his wife, Zachariah was an obsessive demon hunter who was an expert at spotting the signs of demonic presences. Usually he would leave Anna behind with us when he was off hunting. I suppose he didn’t want to chance losing the only family he’d got left to demons. Sometimes our father would go with him. The last time that happened, I was thirteen and they were going to check out a particularly strong set of omens in Ilchester, Maryland. That was Zachariah and Father’s last hunt.

 

After that, Anna took over Father’s old role of providing back-up for hunters, and we let her stay in the old salvage yard. It was the closest thing she had to a home, and she was like a sister to us anyway. Gabriel and I took to the road, swearing that we’d track down every demon that we could in the hope that one day we’d get the bastard that killed our father. Sometimes, we’d stop by Sioux Falls, but we’d always end up leaving after a few days. The house had too many memories that we were keen to forget.

 

Dean pulled up the car at the yard’s driveway.

“I’ll be back in a bit. That’ll give you enough time for the full family reunion.”

After letting me get out of the car, he drove off without another word. He was probably still annoyed about our earlier disagreement. I had more important things to focus on than a pissed-off angel, however. For me, it had been forty long years in Hell since I’d seen my brother despite only a few months having passed for him since my descent to Perdition. I was never going to be ready for this reunion. I had left Gabriel with him knowing that I was going to Hell for his sake. He would find out soon enough about what I had done there: Gabriel knew me too well for that to remain secret for long. There were no words I could say to make that better. I could only hope that he wouldn’t judge me as harshly as I judged myself.

 

If my brother had any sense, he would tell me to pack my things and run. After all, I was a monster now, no better than the things we had hunted. I was cursed. Nothing would ever be able to change that.

 

Internally bracing myself for the ordeal ahead, I knocked on the old familiar white door with some trepidation. With little warning, the door was yanked open and Gabriel rushed out, silver knife in hand. I should have been prepared for this. We had been well-trained enough not to take any supposed miracle at face value. He likely thought I was a revenant or some other kind of creature. We scuffled for a bit till I managed to wrestle the knife off him and used it to keep him at a distance.

“Gabriel, it’s me. You need to listen to me.”

Gabriel laughed, somewhat bitterly I thought. “If you were a monster, that’s exactly what you would say.”

“No, Gabriel, it really is me. If I was some kind of creature, would I be able to do this?” I drew the silver knife up to my arm and nicked the skin so that it drew blood. Gabriel still looked somewhat unconvinced, but I could see that he had relaxed slightly. I was just about to start explaining my unanticipated return when I felt a splash of water from behind me. Anna. It made sense that they would want to check with holy water to see if I was a demon. Usually, the unnecessary soaking would have irritated me. Now, I didn’t care one bit. I was back with my brother and that was all that mattered.

 

Finally sure that it was me, Gabriel moved to hug me. We just stood like that for a while, neither of us wanting to end the rare brotherly moment. Anna had started crying.

“I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused.” I could only guess at how hard the last few months had been for him.

“Shut up.” Gabriel’s voice was full of emotion. “Cassie, don’t you dare sell your soul for me again.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.” I’d be taking better care of my brother this time.

We finally stepped apart. Anna gave me a warm smile but was quickly down to business. She had always been the best hunter out of the three of us. “How on earth did you manage to get out?”

“There was a man at my grave. Dean. He said that he was an Angel of the Lord and that he was the one who raised me from Perdition.”

Gabriel snorted with disbelief. “Angels?! Seriously, that’s what he told you? There’s no such thing.”

I should have expected this. Despite both of us being raised as God-fearing Christians, our father’s death had cast away what little belief Gabriel had ever possessed. It was one of the few points on which we differed.

Anna gave Gabriel a disapproving look. “There’s more lore on angels than most of the creatures we hunt, Gabe. Why couldn’t they be real? Besides, I’m guessing Castiel asked for some proof before taking Dean’s word for it that he was an angel.”

“I saw his wings.”

 

……………

 

We quickly decided that the most sensible thing to do would be to start sifting through all of Father’s old books for whatever information we could find on angels. Dean might have promised to return soon, but we didn’t know how long that could be. All of us were reluctant to trust Dean too readily, and the more information we had, the better equipped we would be to make a judgement on whether he was an ally or not.

 

“What kind of arrogant dick calls themselves ‘Dean’ anyway?” Gabriel grumbled as he flicked through an angelology encyclopaedia. “He must know that we’d realise it was a fake name.”

“I was too busy worrying about if he was an angel or not to try and find out what his real name was,” I snapped back.

“He probably wouldn’t have told you anyway,” Anna noted, still immersed in sifting through our father’s old notes for mentions of angels. “Angels’ names are very powerful, after all. Once you know an angel’s name, you can summon them, according to this. You’ve only just met him. He’s not going to trust us that quickly, despite what he did for you.”

“You’ve got it in one, sweetheart.” We all looked up sharply to see Dean leaning nonchalantly against the kitchen door. “Not to mention the fact that I’d have the entire Halo crowd chasing my ass when they realise I’ve ditched Heaven.”

Both Gabriel and Anna quickly had their guns at the ready. Dean seemed to have expected this as he didn’t appear overly fazed.

“Relax, I come in peace.” He held his hands up in what was evidently supposed to be a calming gesture. It would take more than that to convert us to his cause.

“What do you want with Castiel?” Anna asked. “You wouldn’t have resurrected him if you didn’t want something.”

Dean looked slightly awkward at this, shuffling his feet slightly. “Truth is…I need your help stopping the Apocalypse.”

Gabriel looked even more unconvinced. “What, so you expect us to believe that the whole of the Heavenly Host isn’t enough to stop the end of the world? How’s a bunch of hunters going to make the slightest difference?”

“Yeah, if Heaven wasn’t too busy trying to start the Apocalypse, I’d definitely go to them for help.” Dean replied sarcastically.

“Why would Heaven want to bring about the Apocalypse?” I couldn’t deny that I was slightly shaken. I prayed to angels every night. I believed in God and His good intentions for the world despite all Gabriel’s snide remarks on the subject. I could deal with angels and demons. I’d stared death in the face on countless hunts. But Heaven trying to bring about the end of the world? That was the most terrifying prospect I’d faced yet.

Dean shot me a sympathetic smile and sighed. “It’s a long story. I’d probably best start at the beginning.” Without waiting for an answer from any of us, he pulled up a chair and began his story.

 

…………

 

“I suppose it really starts with Lucifer. You lot might prefer to call him Satan or the Devil, but Lucifer was an archangel once upon a time. Dad loved him the best. We all knew that. That’s why we called him Lucifer, ‘The Morning Star’.” Dean’s eyes were full of sadness, and I could see for the first time the pain of many centuries shining through. “Then Dad made humans. He showed us these fragile, flawed beings and told us to love them more than we cared for Him. Most of us at least tried. Lucifer couldn’t do it. That kid was always too proud for his own good. Dad told Michael that if he couldn’t save Lucifer, he would have to kill him. Michael tried to reason with him, but the stupid son of a bitch didn’t try hard enough. Lucifer wouldn’t back down. He corrupted a human and twisted her soul in ways you can’t imagine to make the first demon and send a massive ‘Screw you’ to Dad. It all ended with a big standoff. Michael won, but he couldn’t lose his brother. Instead, he cast Lucifer down into the deepest pits of Hell, locking him away in his own private prison cell.”

 

The longer Dean spoke, the more bitter his voice became. We couldn’t help but be reminded that while this was just theology for us, these people were Dean’s family. Lucifer was Dean’s brother once, and despite the fact that he was evidently hurt by his brother’s betrayal, I could tell that Dean still loved his brother. Even Gabriel managed to withhold the wisecracks for once.

 

“Dad pissed off centuries ago to leave us running the planet, which was the worst idea imaginable. Most angels couldn’t give a rat’s ass about humanity. You know what most of them call you? Mud monkeys. You’re no better than animals to them. So, when a bunch of demons started trying to free Lucifer from the cage, the flying douchebags decided that they wouldn’t try and stop it. With Lucifer out of the cage again and threatening to destroy the world, Michael will have no choice but to kill him and then the angels can go on a glorious crusade against sin to create paradise on Earth.”

“Wouldn’t killing the devil be a good thing?” I asked hesitantly. “Besides, you said Michael doesn’t want to kill Lucifer. Couldn’t you ask him for help?”

“Trust me, letting the other angels take over is a bad plan. Half the planet will be toast by the time the Apocalypse is properly stopped and you can forget ever having free will again.” Dean’s frown deepened. “As for Michael, he’s always just been Daddy’s blunt little instrument. There’s no use relying on him. He screws up everything he touches.”

Evidently there was some bad blood there. I couldn’t help wondering what Michael had done to make Dean hate him so much.

“You must have a plan for stopping the Apocalypse, though,” Anna reasoned. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have come to us.”

“Lucifer’s cage is held together by a series of Seals. The first and last seals are fixed, but any of the others can be broken by six hundred and sixty six different possibilities. Once sixty six of them are broken, Lucifer will be free. We can’t stop them breaking all the seals. We’d be fighting a war on too many fronts. We can slow them down, though. If we break the last seal before they’re finished, that should screw up the spell that holds the cage together and they’ll never be able to bust the lock.”

Anna seemed satisfied with this answer. “What’s the last seal?”

“I don’t know. I ditched Heaven as soon as I found out what they were really up to, so didn’t hang around long enough to find out. The main demon trying to break the seals will know. Lilith, the first demon to be created. If we catch up with her and kill her, that’ll slow things down enough to save the Seals. Maybe we can find out from her what the last Seal is before we gank her. I’m not going to lie though, she’s a tough bitch to kill. Holy water doesn’t work on her.”

 

Lilith. My blood ran cold. I knew that name only too well. She was the bastard who had killed my father all those years ago. We’d spent years searching for her, chasing every goddam demon omen we could find, researching every possible way of killing her. It hadn’t been enough though. When we finally caught up with her in Wyoming, she was too well prepared, almost as if she had known we were coming. I should have foreseen that our finding her so easily was a trap. Her knife was what had killed Gabriel and set me on the path to hell. Maybe we’d soon have a chance to get our revenge.

 

I had expected Gabriel to take this sudden revelation quite badly. He’d been killed by the bitch, after all. Yet whilst he looked visibly upset, I could tell that he was thinking hard about something. After a brief pause, he said hesitantly, “So, if the first and last seals are fixed, what broke the first seal?” He glanced over guiltily in my direction. “Was it something to do with your bringing Cassie back from hell?”

 

So that’s what he was worried about. My coming back from Hell couldn’t have been the seal, though, or Dean wouldn’t have rescued me. But then why else take such an interest in me? I must be somehow related to the seal or Dean probably wouldn’t have bothered. I’m nothing special. How could I be connected?

 

Dean didn’t say anything initially, fiddling with some loose papers on the desk. He deliberately didn’t look at any of us. There was silence for a few moments. Then he spoke, seeming to reach some kind of decision after an internal struggle, looking anywhere but at me.

 

“The first seal was broken when a righteous man shed blood in Hell.”

 

Gabriel and Anna still looked uncomprehending, but I immediately got it.

“That’s not possible. I’m not righteous.”

Anna let out a sharp gasp. She’d evidently just realised what Dean was implying. Gabriel didn’t say anything, but looked at me with barely concealed disgust and clenched his fists.

“Cas, you sold your soul to save your brother. You don’t get much more righteous than that.” Despite the sarcasm, I could tell Dean was genuinely sorry. I wanted to hate him for it, but I couldn’t.

 

I just felt numb.


	3. Chapter 3

Gabriel reacted exactly as I thought he would to the news of what I had done in Hell. He had a strong sense of right and wrong, always wanting to be sure that whatever we’d been hunting was what was killing people. Anyone who behaved in a way that he felt was morally wrong would be harshly censured by him, and if he could find a way to punish them, he would. Anna tried to moderate him, but Gabriel still ended up screaming at me then storming out of the room. I knew it would be quite a while before he could stomach seeing me again. To be honest, even if he never spoke to me again, I thought my punishment was well-deserved. I had been a torturer and enjoyed the power that my role gave me. I was no better than the scum we had hunted. That didn’t mean that I didn’t feel hurt by the rejection, though. Gabriel and I had been through a lot together. For my actions to be the cause of the first great rift between us killed me inside.

 

After everything that had happened, I needed some time to think. As was my usual practice when things were rough, I retreated to my old childhood sanctuary. Not far from the main house, there was a small grove of trees at the edge of the salvage yard. I used to stay there hidden from all the problems of the world for hours at a time when I was a child. Looking at the beauty of nature helped calm my nerves, and it was always a quiet place to think. I hadn’t been there long, however, when I heard footsteps making their way towards me. Possibly Anna coming to check up on me. Instead to my surprise, when I glanced up, I saw Dean ambling towards me.

 

He sat down beside me on the grassy bank and wordlessly proffered me one of the two beers he had brought with him. We just sat there for a bit, one of those comfortable silences where no words say more than a conversation ever would. Dean’s presence was strangely comforting. It felt like I’d known him for years rather than just a day. I suppose the trip back from Hell does that to people.

 

“He’ll come round, you know.” Dean said eventually. “That’s what family is for, forgiving each other’s screw-ups.”

“You don’t know Gabriel. It’ll take quite a bit for him to forgive me for this particular screw-up.”

“Hey, you’re his kid brother. He’s going to take it badly. From his point of view, it’s his fault you ended up in Hell in the first place. To him, you’re still the snot-nosed kid that he always got stuck looking after and it’s his job to watch your back. He’s not just angry at you, but angry at himself for letting it happen.”

Something in his tone of voice suggested that Dean was speaking from personal experience.

“Is that what happened with you and Samael?” I couldn’t help but remember the guilt on Dean’s face when he had said that he couldn’t save his brother.

Dean looked away, taking a good swig of his beer before answering. “Sammy went dark side. He was the angel responsible for collecting the souls of the dead. Seeing all the suffering mankind caused killed something inside of him, I guess. He couldn’t trust in Dad’s plan anymore. I tried everything to stop him, I begged him not to do it, but the stubborn son of a bitch wouldn’t listen. I still can’t stop thinking about it, whether if I’d done things differently he’d have stayed.”

“Did he fall with Lucifer?” No wonder Dean hated Michael so much. Michael’s failure to prevent Lucifer’s fall had done more than divide Dean’s family. It had also taken his beloved brother away from him.

“Right into the fiery Pit.” A single tear stained Dean’s cheek. “No matter what I do, nothing can ever make that right. He’ll be there, you know. If we fail to stop the Apocalypse. I can’t decide if I’d rather see him again, even if that’ll mean that I’ll have to fight him, or if I should leave him down there in Hell. I called him all kinds of awful things, a freak, a monster. Heck, he must hate my guts, and he’d be right to.”

I couldn’t help but grieve for him. Dean had lost everything, seen his family fall apart, and now he was desperately trying to stop the Apocalypse so that he wouldn’t be forced to fight his brother. I was sure that the only reason he was telling me any of this was because my fight with Gabriel had brought back all those bad memories. Hesitantly, unsure of what the social protocols were regarding hugging angels, I put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“Dean, I may not know your brother or what exactly happened between you, but I’m sure that what Samael was doing was wrong. You were right to challenge him about it, no matter what the consequences. Samael must know that as well. He just doesn’t want to admit it.” _Just like I can’t admit to Gabriel that I think he’s right about me and what I am._

Dean looked at me curiously, “You really believe all that crap Gabriel said back there, that you’re a freak, don’t you?” No answer was really necessary. He could see from the look on my face that he was right. “Cas, no one could have stood the way you were tortured in Hell. Those demons were doing their best to break you as quickly as possible so they could start freeing Lucifer. You did well holding out for so long.”

“I can’t believe I’m the first person to go to Hell to save someone else, Dean. I tortured enough poor bastards in the same position. I was just the weak link that broke.”

Something in Dean seemed to break at that moment. Pulling me close to him so his face was inches from mine in a clear invasion of personal space, he started to speak low and urgently.

“Cas, I saw your soul when I dragged you out of that godforsaken Pit. Despite all the shit that you’d been through, despite everything you’d been made to do, your soul was still the brightest and most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” With his face so close to mine, I couldn’t help but notice that his eyes, too green for any human, were full of pain. “So, don’t you dare think you’re not worth saving. You matter, more than you think. You’re my friend. I’m not letting you beat yourself up about this. I don’t need to feel that I’ve failed yet again just like I’ve failed every godforsaken thing I care about.”

This admission shocked me. I’d never had anyone call me their friend before. I didn’t have the knack of conversing easily with people that seemed necessary to forging friendships. Anna and Gabriel didn’t really count; they were family after all or as good as. They had to at least vaguely tolerate my social ineptitudes.

“We’re…friends?”

Dean nervously laughed. “Hey, we’ve literally been through Hell together. I guess that’s enough to make anyone buddies.”

He started to stand up, evidently planning on checking on the others. I knew most of what he’d said was probably just a conscious effort to cheer me up and win my trust, but it didn’t stop me from feeling better. Dean was one of those people you instinctively liked. Despite my better instincts as a hunter, I knew that I already trusted him with my life.

“So, no more chick flick moments, okay?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Okay.”

There was an awkward pause.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, Cas?”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

He started to make his way back to the house, and I listened to his footsteps recede into the distance.

 

……………………………

 

When I finally got up the courage to go back to the house, Gabriel was nowhere to be seen. Anna was cooking for dinner whilst trying and failing to stop Dean from snacking on the newly baked apple pie he’d found in the fridge. On seeing me, Anna gave me a hug and a warm smile, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes. At least she was making the effort to try and forgive me, little though I deserved it.

“Where’s Gabriel?” I said somewhat warily. Ideally, I wanted to avoid another confrontation. Besides, he’d come and talk to me when he was ready to talk about what I’d done. If he was ever ready to.

“Upstairs,” Dean replied, mouth still full of pie. Evidently table manners hadn’t been high on the list of things to be learnt at Angel Academy. “He’s been listening to Led Zeppelin at full blast for the last hour or so. Looks like your brother at least has decent taste in music.”

I couldn’t resist the opportunity to trade cheap insults with him. It was better than thinking about why Gabriel had felt the need to hide in his room. “Gabriel at least has a better singing voice than you do. I will never think of the phrase ‘voice of an angel’ ever again as anything other than an insult.”

“Yeah, Sammy always said that my voice was enough to put you off music for life…” Dean’s mirth soon turned into quiet pain when he realised what he’d said.

Quickly changing the subject, I asked, “So what’s the plan now? When are we heading off to hunt down Lilith?”

Anna tried unsuccessfully to take the pie away from Dean, “Dean and I have just been discussing that. Gabe and I are going to stay here to research demon omens. We’ll call you if we get any leads. You and Dean are going to hit the road to start hunting down demons who might know where Lilith is based.”

Great. Gabriel hated research and would usually do anything to avoid it. Anything except going on a road trip with his torturer of a brother, it seems.

Dean shot me one of his trademark devil-may-care grins. “Looks like we’ll have plenty of time for me to educate you in proper music, Cas.”

Oh no, not more tuneless singing. I groaned inwardly.

 

………………

 

It didn’t take long to pack up our equipment for our trip. My duffle bag, which contained all of my hunting equipment, was already packed, and Anna had been keeping all of my guns in working order. All that was required was to quickly put together a bag of clothes and grab my old journal, which contained everything I knew about hunting. Gabriel didn’t show up to see us off, no surprises there, but Anna was kind enough to gift Dean the rest of the apple pie and to promise to call me that evening to get an update on our progress.

 

I was expecting Dean to insist on driving, but instead he indicated that I should drive first. Considering Dean’s apparent love for his car and mildly disturbing habit of calling her “Baby,” I interpreted this as a gesture of sympathy considering how cut up I was about Gabriel rather than due to any desire on Dean’s part to divide driving responsibilities. Waving farewell to Anna, I switched on the engine and pushed one of the tapes I had brought for that purpose into the cassette player. Within moments, the dulcet tones of Leonard Cohen filled the car.

 

_I've heard there was a secret chord_

_That David played, and it pleased the Lord_

_But you don't really care for music, do you?_

_It goes like this_

_The fourth, the fifth_

_The minor fall, the major lift_

_The baffled king composing Hallelujah_

 

Dean sighed in annoyance. There was evidently not enough of an electric guitar line to please him. Smiling in amusement at his discomfort, I couldn’t resist a jibe, “Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole.”

 

I hadn’t just chosen the song to annoy him. “Hallelujah,” with its strong religious undertones, had always been one of my favourite songs, especially as I associated it with my mother. Father had always forbidden us talking about her. We weren’t even allowed to say her name. She’d died when Gabriel and I were kids. From the small fragments of information that we could occasionally get out of Father when he’d had slightly too much to drink, they’d been hunting a demon together and things had gone badly wrong. My mother had been burnt to death before Father’s very eyes. All I had left of her were some vague memories of her putting me to bed at night with the words “Angels are watching over you” and singing “Hallelujah” as a lullaby. I certainly had an angel watching over me now, although I don’t think Mother would have imagined that he would appear wearing a leather jacket and driving a classic car.

 

Glancing over at Dean, I couldn’t help but be struck at how human he looked. It was hard to reconcile his leather-jacket wearing vessel who cracked bad jokes and had disgraceful table manners to the powerful wavelength of celestial intent that had rescued me from Hell. From what Dean had said about the other angels, I could tell that acting like a human wasn’t exactly encouraged amongst the Halo brigade. Yet since we’d met at my grave, I’d seen little sign of Dean using his heavenly powers. He must have some abilities and be fairly powerful too or he wouldn’t have been able to rescue me from Hell so easily. Besides, my curiosity as a student of religious lore meant that I was fascinated by what powers angels actually possessed.

After a brief internal debate, I made up my mind. I would ask him.

Choosing my words carefully as it was likely to be a sensitive subject, I inquired, “Why do you drive everywhere? Can’t you use your wings to fly across the country or something?”

As I’d predicted, Dean looked slightly uncomfortable. “Truth is, Cas, I’m not the biggest fan of flying. It’s not exactly the most comfortable way to travel, not like Baby here.” He stroked the dashboard fondly and, not for the first time, I felt like I was third-wheeling. “Besides, my powers have been cut off somewhat since I joined the Rebel Alliance. My vessel isn’t strong enough to deal with the full extent of my powers: he’d burn up if I used them too often. Think of it like I’m Superman and my vessel’s made of kryptonite.”

I could tell he was making a reference to some film, but couldn’t place it. Gabriel had always bemoaned my lack of any interest in popular culture. “I don’t understand that reference.”

Dean looked at me in horror, “Dude, seriously? You’ve never seen _Superman_? That explains why you didn’t get the _Star Wars_ reference. Would it kill you to watch a film once in a while?”

“I do watch films,” I protested indignantly, failing to mention that the only time Gabriel could ever convince me to join him in front of the TV was for our yearly Christmas watching of _It’s a Wonderful Life_. To avoid a grand inquisition from the angel, I quickly changed the subject. “Besides, you were saying about your vessel? Is that common to all angels or is it to do with your rebelling against heaven?”

“Nah, it’s just me. There were…complications when I ran out on heaven and chose my vessel. He’s not quite suited to deal with my angelic awesomeness.” Dean looked like he was choosing his words carefully. Seeing the shocked look on my face, he continued, “Don’t worry, I should still be good for a year or so.”

I squinted at Dean, confused at the implication of his words. “What do you mean, you’ll be good for a year or so?”

The angel sighed. “My grace, it’s burning out of this vessel. Eventually, this body’ll be destroyed completely and I’ll be sent back to Heaven. It’s nothing to worry about. I mean, I’ll have done what I came down here to do by then. I won’t need a vessel again.”

“What happens when you get sent back?” My voice was quiet.

“I dunno. I mean, I full on rebelled against Heaven. Best case scenario, they’ll torture me for a bit to get my ass back in line.” Dean didn’t bother saying what the worst case scenario was. He didn’t need to.

I couldn’t accept this. Maybe it was because Dean was the only person who was prepared to stick with me despite all that I’d done. Maybe it was just my desperate need not to lose another friend. But I couldn’t let Dean go. “Dammit Dean, we can fix this. There must be a vessel out there somewhere who can cope with your powers. Why don’t we track them down and convince them to say yes to you?”

“No, I’m not doing that. It wouldn’t be fair on Dean anyway.” After seeing my look of puzzlement, he continued. “My current vessel. I decided to take his name as well as his body. No offence, but trust me, it’s better for you if you don’t know my real name. My vessel was a down-on-his-luck mechanic who’d lost his dad and kid brother in a car accident a few years back. Dean never quite got over it. He’d been slowly drinking himself to death when I found him and suggested there was a better way to make his death mean something. He gave up his body to help us. I’m not just letting that sacrifice be for nothing so I can possess another poor bastard who’s unlucky enough to be able to deal with angel mojo. At least I made it so he’s not still in here with me. Being possessed by an angel isn’t exactly pleasant. I managed to find a spell that could send his soul to heaven. He’s up there now, finally reunited with his family. The Impala was his. One of his conditions for giving me his consent was that I’d take care of his Baby.” Dean chuckled at the thought. “As if I’d do anything else.”

 

Once again, we lapsed into an awkward silence. I couldn’t believe Dean could be so stupid. He had what amounted to a death sentence hanging over him and didn’t want to do anything about it. Despite the short time in which I’d known him, I’d already decided that he was family and no matter what, I never gave up on my family. If he wouldn’t try and work out a solution, then I would.

 

_I did my best, it wasn't much_

_I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch_

_I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you_

_And even though it all went wrong_

_I'll stand before the Lord of Song_

_With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah_


	4. Chapter 4

The next few weeks passed in a kind of blur, with Dean and I tracking down a myriad of demons who might know something, anything about Lilith. After our conversation about Dean’s grace, Dean seemed to have decided that the best policy was to distance himself from me as much as possible to stop me from challenging him on what the hell he was doing to himself. At first, I tried to fight it. I didn’t need this, especially not after my fight with Gabriel. Yet every conversation I tried to start that got close to talking about stuff other than the case was ignored by Dean. Eventually, I stopped trying after one particularly disastrous attempt which ended with Dean saying coldly, “Don’t presume to know me, Castiel. I’m a servant of Heaven, not your freaking babysitter.” I just closed in on myself, avoiding talking to Dean except when I had to. He started going out every night to bars to hustle pool (something he seemed to have a natural talent for, even without using his angelic abilities) and presumably, from the smell of perfume that often accompanied his return afterwards, to meet women. I usually rang Anna while he was out. I didn’t tell her how dead inside I felt or that I was having nightmares of Hell, but I think she knew without my saying. Gabriel still wouldn’t speak to me, but Anna assured me that he was coming round.

 

I suppose I should have expected nothing less from the angel. Dean had convinced me to help him. He no longer needed to pretend that I was anything more than a colleague to him. The problem was that I just couldn’t see him in the same way. I tried, really I did. I didn’t really know what I’d come to feel for him. I’d never felt this way about anyone before.

 

I only knew that I couldn’t stop looking at him. That I would always stand too close until he reminded me about personal space. Or how green had suddenly become my favourite colour and how that had absolutely nothing to do with the green eyes of an angel that I knew. I grew to love his smile, his voice, even his tone-deaf singing. I just wished that he would smile more often.

 

I suppose I could expect nothing more from him. It was obvious that he felt trapped on this death sentence of a mission to save the world and getting stuck with me, one of Hell’s best torturers, could hardly be his idea of a good time. Things came to a head when we were working a case in Springfield, Ohio. Some demons loyal to Lilith had been in town, and from what we could work out, they’d been tasked with breaking one of the seals there. But by the time we tracked down the demon nest, we just found a whole load of dead demons and no clue as to what had killed them. I did some research, and that wasn’t the only odd thing happening in the town. A few days before, the local Republican candidate had announced that he was going to donate all his campaign funds to some local animal centre, which seemed a bit strange especially considering that he’d only a few days earlier been part of a campaign to try and close the centre down. Something seemed to have scared him, but he wasn’t saying what. Then there was the frat boy who was known for being a bit of a jerk towards some of the geekier kids. He disappeared one night and showed up a few hours later with his clothes and hair singed, spouting some story about being attacked by a dragon. I wanted to investigate, but when I showed Dean my research, he just scowled and stormed out to the local bar, telling me to keep my nose out of it if I knew what was good for me.

 

I had no intention of doing that. Whatever was in town had to be quite powerful to take down a nest of demons, and I wasn’t going to chance letting it go, even if it hadn’t hurt anyone human yet. I also couldn’t help but wonder if it could be a useful ally for us in trying to stop the Apocalypse; if it was prepared to take down a group of demons, maybe it didn’t want the Apocalypse either. I rang Anna to see if she had any ideas what we might be dealing with. I’d certainly seen nothing like this before.

After I’d outlined the case to her, she sighed. “Looks like you’re dealing with a Trickster. It’s no wonder you haven’t seen one before; they’re really rare.”

“A Trickster? I don’t think I’ve read much lore on them. What should I know?”

“Well, they’re demigods, so they’re fairly difficult to kill. Look out for someone eating a lot of candy. These guys are supposed to have a real sweet tooth. Deadly pranks are usually their MO, meting out just desserts to people who they think are too proud for their own good. Except for the demons’ nest, this one seems pretty tame, though. You might stand a chance of getting it on your side to stop the Apocalypse. It would be worth a shot. Tricksters are usually creatures of pleasure. The destruction of the planet is hardly in their best interests, either.”

“What do I need to kill it? Just in case things don’t work out…”

“A wooden stake through the heart should kill it. Be careful, though, Tricksters can warp reality. That thing could fling anything at you. You’ll need Dean watching your back.”

Ah. No way was that happening. Dean wouldn’t even let me investigate the case so he would hardly be happy helping me hunt the thing down. I didn’t want Anna to worry, though, so I replied, “Don’t worry, Dean will watch my back.”

I had evidently hesitated for too long before answering as Anna realised that I wasn’t being exactly truthful. “Dean does know what you’re up to, doesn’t he, Cas?”

There was no point in lying now. “Dean wasn’t interested in the case. I’m just dealing with it while he’s out for the night. I’m not under his command or anything so I don’t need to follow any orders he chooses to give.”

“He’s still ignoring you, isn’t he?”

“He’s an angel. I have no right to expect anything else of him.”

“If you want to talk about it, I’m always here if you need me…”

I cut her off, “It’s not important, Anna. The incidents all seem to be in the area surrounding one of the halls of residence, Crawford Hall, so I’m going to go and investigate. I’ll let you know when I’m finished.” I put down the phone. I had a job to do. I didn’t have time to talk to Anna and worry about a certain green-eyed angel.

 

My plan was to break into Crawford Hall and look for any signs of suspicious activity, but that was foiled as when I arrived at the hall of residence, there was a red-headed woman waiting at the entrance. I couldn’t afford to have any civilians observe my breaking and entering, so I pulled out my fake FBI badge and used my best official tone. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to move along. There’s been an incident not far down the block. It’s not safe for you to be out here.”

The girl laughed, “That trick won’t work on me, dumbass.”

My blood ran cold as I saw she was snacking on a candy bar. The girl snapped her fingers and the scenery around us changed.

 

 

………………………

 

I found myself in what looked like a medieval tent to see the girl sitting on some kind of throne. Surreptitiously checking for the wooden stake in my trench coat pocket, I found that it was gone.

“We can talk privately here.” The girl gestured for me to take a seat, but I ignored her. I wanted to be ready for any attack she might throw at me.

“You’re the Trickster.” I said accusingly. I needed to try and play for time while I figured out what to do if my plan of reasoning with the demigod went wrong.

“Yeah, but you can call me Charlie.” The girl smiled. “You two idiots had to come to town and ruin everything, didn’t you? I know all about you and your feathered friend, Castiel.”

Damn. “What do you know about us? Why would you be interested in me anyway?” I tried to keep my voice steady.

“Let’s just say it’s in my best interests to know what the angels are up to, okay? I know all about your and Dean’s plans. I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to talk.” Charlie said coolly.

“You dealt with that demons’ nest trying to break one of the seals. Do you want to stop the Apocalypse, too?”

“I’m not getting involved in that mess.” Charlie’s expression was cold and angry. “Those idiots want to destroy the planet, I don’t care. I’m not going to get my ass kicked because of it. I owe Dean. That’s why I got rid of the nest. He can’t expect anything else of me. One thing I do know, though, there’s no way Michael and Lucifer aren’t going to have their prize fight. Not when Heaven and Hell want it so bad.” Her voice was too bitter for this not to be personal for her in some way. I couldn’t quite figure it out.

I decided to focus more on the matter in hand first. “Why do you want to talk to me then if you don’t want to help us stop it?”

“I want you to take a message to Dean for me. Tell him…tell him to look out for himself, alright? Heaven’s not going to let him do this. Some things you just can’t change, no matter how hard you try.” Charlie smiled sadly.

“Who should I say sent him the message?”

“Tell him that Charlie says hi. That should be enough for him.”

Charlie, whoever she was, evidently seemed to know Dean well. I wondered what history there was there.

Seeing my look of bemusement, Charlie laughed. “If you’re both set on doing this, you might want to try looking at this address.” She tossed me a piece of paper. “The demon there, Alistair, he’s Hell’s finest torturer. I’m sorry; I know you’ve come across him before. He knows where Lilith is. Good luck. He won’t be easy to crack. Don’t try to find me. I’m not going to help you like this again.” Making what I vaguely recognised as the Vulcan salute from Star Trek, she disappeared, and I found myself back outside Crawford Hall alone.

 

Ignoring the gnawing feeling in my stomach that had been there ever since Charlie had said Alistair’s name, I went to find Dean. We had a demon to catch.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean was pissed when I told him about my encounter with Charlie.

“Dammit, Cas, I told you not to investigate that case!” he snapped.

“Considering people were being attacked and the scale of the attack on that demon nest, I felt I had no choice but to investigate it,” I said coldly. “Besides, we found a lead on Lilith. That’s worth something.”

“Not worth risking your damn neck over.” Dean was in my personal space now so our faces were only a few inches apart. “You could have got hurt.”

“I’m a hunter, Dean. I’m no stranger to exposing myself to danger. I am unharmed, so there was nothing to be concerned about. I’m not a child. You don’t need to protect me.”

Dean grabbed my shoulder forcefully. “I have every reason to protect you. And yes, you are a frigging child. You have no idea what you’re dealing with here.”

I looked away, “I don’t need you to perch on my shoulder. Either you start treating me as your equal or I will leave to work with someone who will. Now tell me what Charlie meant when she said she knew you. Who is she? She’s too powerful to just be a Trickster.”

Dean moved away from me, pacing the room and muttering a few choice swear words under his breath. Eventually he said. “That was no Trickster. ‘Charlie’, or whatever she’s calling herself these days, is an archangel. The archangel of revelation and messengers, if we’re splitting hairs here.”

I had studied too many dictionaries of angelology to not know which angel he was referring to. “That was Gabriel?” I couldn’t believe it. Any other time, I would be calling my brother to inform him that his angelic namesake was a Star Trek loving prankster, but that was impossible. “But why is she pretending to be a Trickster?”

“Yeah, that’s Gabriel. Don’t call her that, though, she hates it. She likes to go by her vessel’s name. I don’t really know why. Something about wanting to have a secret code name when on Earth so Heaven won’t find her, I think. Charlie always had a thing for righting wrongs and stuff. Figures that being a trickster was what she’d have chosen to do when she skipped out on Heaven. She couldn’t hack watching her brothers tear themselves to pieces so went to start slumming it with the pagans. I don’t blame her.” Dean shrugged. “She evidently thinks we’ve got a chance. She wouldn’t help us otherwise. Alistair’s not going to be an easy one, though. To stand a chance of getting anything out of him, we’ll need to properly torture him and not just threaten him with smiting like we did with those other demons.”

“I’ll do it.” My voice was quiet yet resolute.

Dean looked at me horror-struck, the first time he’d properly looked me in the eyes in ages. “No, Cas! You can’t do this!”

“He trained me in Hell. I was his prize student. If anyone stands a chance of breaking him, it’s me. You’re not talking me out of this, Dean.”

Dean couldn’t argue with that. He knew it was the truth. We stood for several moments staring at each other.

Then he sighed and turned away. “I would give anything not to have you do this.” He left the room and all I could do was gaze after him, amazed at his admission.

 

………………

 

Dean and I made our preparations for interrogating Alistair carefully. The plan was that Dean would use his abilities to travel into the compound being used by Alistair and his followers. He’d grab Alistair quickly before anyone realised what was going on, putting a bag over his head marked with a Devil’s Trap so the demon couldn’t escape. We’d found an abandoned warehouse that would do well enough for our purposes. Dean would take Alistair there. We would then imprison him in iron chains and a Devil’s Trap and I would get started. Dean was adamant that he couldn’t be present for the torture. When I suggested having him there to try and intimidate Alistair (a suggestion more because I wanted his moral support than because I thought it could actually work), he refused. Apparently he and Alistair had met several times in the past, and his appearance was only more likely to shut Alistair up than anything else. Dean did agree to be outside the interrogation room, though, so I could come and ask him for advice if I was having any problems.

 

As I waited for Dean to return with our prey, I paced up and down nervously. I wanted to call Anna to get some reassurance, but that would mean explaining what I was about to do, and I couldn’t take the recriminations that would inevitably follow. I didn’t want to torture again. I knew that this would mean facing all those memories of Hell that I had tried to forget and that plagued me every night in the form of nightmares. I didn’t want to become the monster that I had once been again. Torturing again, torturing the man that I had fantasised about tormenting for many of my years in Hell, would make that a very likely outcome.

 

We needed this information, though, and any discomfort on my part would be worth it if we could stop the Apocalypse. I mentally steeled myself for the time ahead, humming “Hallelujah” as my mother used to do as a way of reassuring myself that I was doing the right thing.

 

Dean came through from the other room. “He’s there. Everything’s ready.” His voice was quiet. “Are you going to be okay?”

“My feelings are irrelevant. We have to do this.”

“No, they’re not.” Dean said, somewhat angrily. “Please, Cas, you don’t have to do this.”

“Dean. We’ve talked about this. This is the only way to get the information we need out of Alistair. I’m the best qualified to do this. If you cared so much about my feelings, you wouldn’t have pushed me away these last few weeks,” I snapped back.

The angel looked wounded at my assertion for some reason. Probably because I wasn’t just following his orders like a good weapon of Heaven. Without so much as a backwards look, I walked into the room where Alistair was being kept. Dean didn’t try to stop me.

 

…………………

 

I pulled the hood off Alistair’s head. He grinned when he saw me.

“Well, look who it is. The Righteous Man, fresh out of Hell. What could you possibly want with me, Castiel? Hurting me isn’t going to change what you did.” Alistair said mockingly.

I didn’t rise to the bait. Preparing one of the knives Dean and I had acquired with salt and holy water, I asked, “Where is Lilith, Alistair?”

The demon feigned innocence. “I’m afraid I don’t know. You’ll have to go and ask someone else.”

Slowly and deliberately, I eased the blade into Alistair’s right shoulder. The demon moaned in pain. “I said, where is Lilith? You’re going to tell me, sooner or later.”

“What makes you think I’m as weak as you are, Castiel?” Alistair smiled savagely at me, trying to bait me. It worked. I twisted the blade savagely, Alistair letting out a scream of pain. Withdrawing the blade, I moved back to the table. That was just an initial display to show I meant business. I had much bigger plans for the actual interrogation. I took a syringe and filled it with holy water.

 

“Every day when I was in Hell, I dreamed about what I would do to you if I ever had the chance.” I tried to keep my voice level. “Either you can tell me what I want to know or I will break you in every way possible until you do. It will be better for both of us if you take my offer sooner rather than later.” I realised that I was unconsciously imitating Alistair’s own requests when he demanded that I start torturing in Hell. Alistair said nothing, so I jabbed the syringe into him and watched the pain overwhelm him as the holy water burned him from the inside out. Alistair was obviously in a lot of pain, yelling in agony, but he still had the gall to smirk at me while I was at work. I wasn’t surprised. Alistair was a master of torture. He was probably enjoying my pain at having to return to this far more than he was in agony from the holy water.

 

“I’ll be back.” I made sure all weapons were out of reach of Alistair and that the Devil’s Trap was secure; then I went into the next room to speak to Dean.

 

He was pacing nervously, obviously unhappy.

“Dean, this isn’t working. He’s just sitting there. I think you should come in and talk to him. You said he knows you. Maybe you can intimidate him.”

“No, Cas, I’m not doing that.” Dean said tiredly. “Believe me, that’ll make everything worse. He’ll be expecting the holy water and salt so that’s probably why you’re not making him talk. Try this.” He held out an angel blade. “It belonged to one of my fallen brothers. Your namesake, actually. It’s about time you had one. These blades can kill demons. Stab him with this, just not a blow to kill, and that’ll convince him that you mean business.”

 

I reluctantly took the blade and went back inside the room.

When Alistair saw the blade, he started to laugh. “Oh, Castiel, what have you got yourself into this time?”

“That is none of your concern,” I said haughtily. Wielding the angel blade skilfully, I traced a skin-deep cut up Alistair’s right arm.

“Those holy rollers don’t care a toss about you. You do know half of them are trying to start the Apocalypse?” Alistair was obviously in great pain, but that wasn’t enough to stop the taunting. We both knew that this was his one advantage over me.

“Enough people want to stop it that you don’t stand a chance. Don’t avoid the issue. Now tell me what I need to know. Where’s Lilith?”

“They’re just using you, Castiel. Why else do you think they’d drag you out of Hell? Angels aren’t exactly selfless. A sinner like you, they only want you out because you’re useful to them.” Alistair smiled wolfishly. “Do you want me to tell you what they want you for?”

“You know what I want to hear and that isn’t it.” I was methodically carving up his meatsuit, both of us steadily becoming covered in his blood.

“I’ll tell you anyway. You know Michael needs a vessel for his big stand-off with Lucifer? Thing is, it has to be a certain bloodline. It has been foretold for centuries that a Righteous Man will be the Michael Sword and let the archangel take him. Looks like you got the short straw there, Cassie. But at least your fate is preferable to your beloved Gabriel. I wouldn’t think being the Devil’s chosen vessel would be overly pleasant.” That was enough to stop me for a few seconds. Alistair could see how much it had rattled me.

 

My mind flashed back on the last few weeks.

_“Heaven has work for you to do”…_

_“I need your help stopping the Apocalypse”…_

_“The first seal was broken when a righteous man shed blood in Hell”…_

 

“You’re lying.” I was telling myself that as much as Alistair and he knew it. Dean couldn’t just want me as a vessel for Michael to stop the Apocalypse, could he? I thought back on how Dean had told me so much about the devastation that the Apocalypse would inevitably bring, how any price was worth paying to stop it. I remembered how he’d gained my trust, appealing to the common values we shared, and how he panicked when he thought I had put myself in danger. It couldn’t be true. Dean wouldn’t do that to me. He couldn’t…

 

“Oh, why would I need to do that when the truth is much more painful?” Alistair’s voice was soft and full of venom. “You and your brother, you’re the vessels of Michael and Lucifer and are destined to fight it out to decide the fate of the world. It has to be two brothers of the right bloodline, you know. So, I suppose the question is which one of Michael’s stooges was sent along to convince you to trust the Heavenly Host? I bet they did all the usual sweet-talk, told you that you were special, that you could be saved. Well, I’ve got news for you, Castiel. No matter what you do, whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, you will always end up here. You’ll always be one of ours. Everything you’ve done to me, I taught you.”

 

Alistair had driven me into a white hot fury, which was presumably his intent. I lifted the knife and drove it deep into Alistair’s shoulder. He let out an ear-piercing scream.

“You have no right to talk to me like that.” My voice was shaking with fury. “Now tell me where Lilith is or I will kill you.”

Dean came running into the room, evidently realising what had happened.

“Cas! Are you okay? What’s going on?” He rushed over.

When Alistair saw Dean’s face, despite the great deal of pain he was in, he started laughing. The sound chilled my blood. “Oh this is priceless! So this is the angel you’ve been trusting to protect you, Cas? You’re more of a fool than I took you for in Hell.”

Both of us glared at him.

“Dean, what’s he talking about?”

I knew demons lied, but Alistair had always taken far more pleasure in revealing unpleasant truths than dealing in lies.

Dean didn’t answer me. I could sense the boundless fury that he was feeling, though.

Alistair stared directly at Dean. “Hello, Michael.”


	6. Chapter 6

Michael.

It couldn’t be true.

I stared at Dean, horror-struck, desperately hoping that he’d prove Alistair wrong.

He refused to look at me. I remembered how he’d expressed contempt for Michael and his choices, how it had seemed all too personal a matter for him. What Dean had said about his vessel, how it couldn’t deal with his angelic power, would make sense with what Alistair had said about Michael needing a vessel of a certain bloodline. The irony of my being desperate to save Dean while all along I was the solution was not lost on me. Everything had been a lie.

“You bastard.” My voice was full of pain.

Alistair smirked. “So, he didn’t tell you? That was a low trick to play on poor Castiel here, Michael. Let me guess, you did your best to become friends with him so that when the time comes, he’d happily give himself over to be your vessel? I wonder, have you told him about your precious Sammy yet?”

Dean’s face was full of angelic fury. The air crackled with the power coming from him. He slapped Alistair hard across the face. “Don’t you dare say his name, you arrogant douchebag! You know nothing.”

Alistair was not in the least bit perturbed by Dean’s reaction. “I’m taking that as a no then.” He glanced over at me. “What did he tell you? If he didn’t tell you who he was, he definitely didn’t tell you what he’s planning.”

Dean punched Alistair this time. “You shut up now, you white-eyed son of a bitch! You know nothing!”

I looked on silently. I had already had the same thought myself. If Dean had lied about being Michael, what else had he been hiding from me?

“Michael here is the one trying to kick-start the Apocalypse.” Alistair laughed. “Sure, Lilith wants to open the Cage and set Lucifer free, but Michael’s just as eager to get his dearest brother back.”

Dean moved to hit Alistair again, but this time I stopped him. “Dean…Is this true?” I looked at him pleadingly. “I want you to tell me the truth.”

We stared at each other silently for a few moments with Alistair watching us in amusement.

Eventually, Dean broke the silence. “Come outside, Cas. This asshole doesn’t need to hear what I have to say to you.”

I followed him silently; then when we got outside, I started yelling at the angel. “What the hell, Dean or Michael or whatever your name is? Why did you lie to me? I trusted you. I trusted you and you betrayed me. What else aren’t you telling me?”

Dean’s face was devoid of emotion. “I had no choice. You wouldn’t help me otherwise.”

“Yeah, well I’m not going to help you again until you tell me exactly what’s going on.”

“It’s true.” Dean (I still couldn’t think of him as Michael) looked away. “Everything Alistair said, it’s all true. I’m the one trying to let Lucifer out of the box.”

“No,” I said with conviction. “No, I know you and you wouldn’t do that. You may have lied to me, but you wouldn’t start the Apocalypse. Not without good reason.”

Dean laughed bitterly, “You don’t know a damn thing about me, Cas. I lied to you. I needed you to become my vessel. You and Gabriel had to trust me so you’d help me start the Apocalypse by killing Lilith. Her death’s the final Seal. She has to die at the hands of the Righteous Man. It’s been foretold. I knew that you wouldn’t do it unless you thought you were saving the world instead of ending it. Heaven kicked me out when they found out what the hell I was planning on doing.”

“Why are you doing this? There must be a reason.”

“You don’t need to know that. I’m just sorry it had to end like this.”

“It’s Armageddon, Dean, and all you can say is sorry? You’re doing this because of some stupid destiny that you think you have to fulfil? That’s no reason to destroy the whole world.”

“No,” Dean’s voice was quiet but full of pent up rage. “Destiny’s a whole load of crap. You know what’s more important than destiny? People. Families. I’m doing this for family.”

“So you’re just going to destroy my family and the world as we know it so your Father’s happy you finally killed the Devil?” I glared at him.

Dean’s eyes flashed with anger. “What is so worth saving? I know how much you hurt, how guilty you feel about Hell. In Paradise, everything’ll be forgiven. You can be happy and at peace with Gabriel and the rest of your family.” Dean sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to talk me round. He seemed different, more like a warrior of Heaven than the man I had come to care so much about.

“You can take your peace and shove it up your ass.” I chose my words carefully, trying to remind him of his attempts at humanity that he seemed so keen to forget. “Because I’d rather have the pain and the guilt. I’d even be happy with Gabriel still thinking I’m a monster. Because whatever I’ve been through, it’s a lot better than just letting this beautiful world go. This is simple, Dean. God asked you and the other angels to protect humanity. Protect us.”

Dean turned away from me, probably so he didn’t have to face that what I was saying was right.

Angrily, I spun him around. “Hey, look at me! Don’t give me any more of this crap about you being a good soldier! There is a right and a wrong here and you know it. I gave everything for you and this is how you repay me. You said we were friends once. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

 

As I had been talking, we’d gradually got closer and closer until our faces were only a few inches from each other. When I had finished my rant, Dean suddenly pulled me towards him. His lips met mine as he kissed me tenderly.

 

My first thoughts were angry ones. How dare Dean use how much I cared about him to try and regain my trust? He must know how much this would inevitably hurt me later. He didn’t care about me. He’d lied to me, betrayed me. But then I also wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe so badly that he really cared for me. I wanted to forget about what he was trying to do to my family, to the planet.

 

Eventually, ignoring the large part of me that wanted to keep on kissing him and never stop, I pushed the angel away.

“Cas, I…” He stammered.

“I don’t want to hear any more of your excuses. Take me home,” I said coldly. I expected an argument, recriminations, something.

Instead, Dean silently took me by the shoulder and we were suddenly back in the salvage yard in Sioux Falls.

“I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.” He looked at me sadly.

“Leave me alone. I never want to see you again, you lying bastard.” I glared at him.

The next moment, he was gone.

It was then that I realised that I loved him.

 

………………

 

I made my way slowly to the door of Anna’s house and knocked. I must have appeared to be in quite a state as I was covered in blood from when I had been torturing Alistair. Anna opened the door, and when she saw me, she pulled me close in a warm embrace. I tried to hug her back, but after the emotional stress of the day, I was too tired. I collapsed in her arms, seeing Anna’s worried face hovering over me before I blacked out. The next thing I knew, I woke up in my room to find Gabriel and Anna sitting by my bedside, talking in whispers.

 

Seeing that I was awake, Gabriel raised one eyebrow. “Looks like you’ve been through the wars, Cassie. You slept for a whole day or so. What the hell has that angel of yours been doing to you? Where is he anyway? It’s not like we know his proper angel name or anything, so we couldn’t ask him what happened.” There was no trace of the anger and disappointment in his voice that I had been expecting. If anything, there was a hint of worry in his tone.

“He’s gone. Dean’s gone, and he’s not coming back.” Saying it was all too brutal a reminder of what had happened to make Dean leave. I started to cry silently.

Anna propped me up in an effort to make me more comfortable. “Tell us what happened.” She rested a comforting hand on my shoulder.

 

So I told them everything. My talk with Charlie. Us finding out Alistair’s location. My torturing the demon. About Dean being Michael, how he was trying to start the Apocalypse, how everything he’d ever said was a lie.

 

At least, I told them almost everything. They didn’t need to know about Dean kissing me. It’s not like it was an important detail, and I felt ashamed of how I had allowed myself to become attached to the angel. Anna and Gabriel said nothing as I told them my story, providing the occasional sympathetic smile to encourage me to continue through the difficult bits and looking horrified as I described what had happened in the warehouse with Alistair. When I’d finished, we sat in silence for a while, thinking about the situation. It’s not every day you’re confronted with the end of the world and have no way to stop it.

 

“We’re going to stop him. We can’t let him do this,” Gabriel eventually muttered.

“I’ve been looking up ways of fighting angels the last few weeks, after Dean…I mean, Michael, told us that Heaven wanted to end the world.” Anna said quietly. I flinched at the mere mention of Dean’s name, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Anna if the sudden sadness in her eyes was anything to go by. “You can trap an angel in a ring of holy fire. If what he told you about his vessel is true, he’ll be weak enough that we can take him down. Now we know his real name, we’ll be able to summon him as well.”

“I just don’t understand why he’s doing this. I know he lied to us, but this doesn’t seem like him.” I could hear the desperation in my own voice. I didn’t want to believe that all of our relationship had been a lie. I couldn’t believe it. Whatever anger I might feel towards Dean, that didn’t change the fact that I cared about him and would struggle to hurt him.

“Just forget about that asshole, Cassie.” Gabriel sighed. “He’s not worth it. He was playing us the whole time.”

“If you don’t want to be with us when we’re dealing with Michael, that’s fine.” Anna looked over at me.

“No, I’m coming. Dean’s my responsibility. I should have realised what he was doing sooner.” I was firm.

“We need to work out a game plan. Like, where are we going to trap him? And what are we going to do when…” Anna was interrupted when the radio by my bed suddenly burst into life, blasting out “Walking on Sunshine” at full volume.

Gabriel moved to turn it off, but the off switch wasn’t working. He swore under his breath, “Looks like that winged dick is coming back. The house is warded against everything else.”

We pulled out our guns. They wouldn’t be any use, but they would at least give us time to think of a better plan. Instead of Dean, though, it was Charlie who materialised in my room.

Noticing our raised guns and bemused expressions, she raised an eyebrow, “What? I’ve always wanted a dramatic entrance.”

 

………………………

 

“What do you want, Charlie?” I asked tiredly, “If Dean sent you, you can tell him we’re not interested.”

“This is Charlie?” Gabriel looked at me incredulously.

I didn’t bother to answer him, too intent on observing the archangel.

“Cas told you about me? I’m flattered.” Charlie leaned against the bedroom wall, unfazed by the guns still trained on her. “Dean didn’t send me. I heard about what happened, though. I’m sorry. I told him he should have been honest with you sooner.”

“You knew? So that’s why you didn’t want to try and stop the Apocalypse, because you knew Dean was behind it.” My voice was cold.

Charlie sighed. “It’s not what you think. I’m guessing Dean didn’t tell you the whole story. He’s stubborn like that. I want to tell you everything. If you’d just put your guns down, we can talk properly. It’s not like they’d hurt me anyway.”

Anna and Gabriel looked to me for guidance, and seeing me start to lower my gun, they followed suit. “If this is a trick…” I glared at the archangel.

“It isn’t, believe me. If anything, I’m the one in need of help.”

I tried not to remember the last time an angel had stood in my family’s home and asked the same thing of me.

“First of all, what did Dean tell you?” Charlie stared intently at me.

“He said that he was Michael and that he was trying to let Lucifer out of the Cage. Enough to make us think he’s a lying, selfish prick,” Gabriel butted in before I could reply, glaring at Charlie.

“Dean really did screw up. I should have expected this. After all, that’s exactly what he would want you to think.” Charlie smiled sadly.

I couldn’t help but feel a glimmer of hope. “You mean…he’s not trying to start the Apocalypse?”

“No…I mean, yes…it’s complicated.” Charlie sighed. “It’ll be easier to understand once I’ve explained. I know Dean told you about our brother Samael. Did he tell you about Samael’s connection with Lucifer?”

“No, he didn’t. He only said that Samael fell when Lucifer did.” I looked away.

“That’s not strictly true. Lucifer is an honorific title which most of the angels used to refer to him. To us, the archangels, he was always known by his proper name, Samael. You can imagine how cut up Dean was when Sam fell. They were very close. He couldn’t bring himself to fight his brother.”

Images arose unbidden of the look of sadness on Dean’s face when he told me about how he couldn’t save his brother. I pushed them away. “That’s no excuse for trying to start the Apocalypse. Why is Dean so desperate to fight Lucifer…I mean, Samael, if he cares about him so much?”

“That’s the point. Dean doesn’t want to fight Sam.” “What? I don’t understand.” Charlie smiled sadly. “When Dean refused to fight Sam and locked him in the Cage, Heaven was furious. Our Father had gone MIA, too sad about what had happened to his family to do anything about it. A load of the higher-ups wanted to open the Cage up right away, but Dean had to be willing to actually finish the job this time. I realised that they’d go to any lengths to make him kill his brother, so I skipped out of Heaven. I was afraid they’d try to make me help.” She looked away, embarrassed. “The head of the Intelligence division in Heaven, Ellen, got her hands on Dean and put him in for reprogramming, which is Heaven-speak for torture. He was made to go through however many simulations of killing Samael until he could do it quickly and efficiently without hesitation. Dean was stronger than they thought he’d be, though. Every so often, he’d try to make a run for it, but they would always catch up eventually.”

I felt sick. No matter what I thought of Dean, I couldn’t imagine going through centuries being forced to kill versions of my brother. He must have been incredibly strong to resist them for so long.

“How do you know all this?” Anna asked quietly.

“Dean told me. I’d just finished speaking to him when Cas came along for our little chat in Springfield. He’d known I was in town from the moment he saw those burnt out demons.”

I tilted my head, confused. “Then why did you give me a message to take to him?”

“I thought he might listen more if he heard it from you. Besides, it’s not like the idiot was going to tell you that something was wrong.” Charlie rolled her eyes. “I hoped you’d work it out and force him to tell you the truth.”

"What happened to him in Heaven, that doesn’t change anything. He still lied to us. Why else would he let Samael out of the Cage if he didn’t want to fight him?” I tried not to let my growing doubts show in my voice.

“To save him.” Charlie’s voice was quiet. “Dean eventually realised that the only way he would be able to convince Heaven to let him go was to pretend that he was going to kill Sam once he was free from the Cage. He got them to let him rescue you, his true vessel, from Hell. He would then try to gain your trust so that you would willingly become his vessel supposedly for the fight against Lucifer. The Righteous Man had to also be the Sword of Michael. His choosing you to become his vessel, a man of the correct bloodline to contain him who had suffered in Hell, started the Breaking of the Seals. Once he’d won your trust and broken all the seals, Dean had planned that he and Sam would take you and Gabriel as their vessels so they would be strong enough to resist the wrath of Heaven.”

“And what makes you think we should care about that?” Gabriel raised his eyebrows. “Dean is still letting Lucifer out of the box, and we only think that there’s a chance he might not try and destroy the entire human race. He still wants to make us into angel condoms. Sorry, lady, but that’s your problem not ours.”

Charlie glared at Gabriel, and the air crackled with angelic power. “Because Sam’s our brother and Dean would do anything to save him, no matter what’s happened in the past. You’d do the same if you were in his shoes, or have you forgotten how quickly you seem to have forgiven Cas for breaking the first Seal?”

Gabriel looked away, embarrassed.

“That was Dean’s plan initially, but then he got to know you guys and didn’t feel that he could do that to you. He tried to push you away so you wouldn’t say yes if he felt tempted to take you as his vessel.”

While Charlie was addressing all of us, her focus was clearly on me. I remembered how Dean had intentionally avoided me the last few weeks and how I sometimes thought that he seemed unduly sad during that time. I had always put it down to his isolation from Heaven. Maybe, just maybe, he really did care about me. I remembered the kiss and how I had reacted.

A whirlpool of guilt built up in my stomach. “What’s he planning on doing now?” I said softly.

Gabriel stared at me incredulously, “You can’t be serious. Cas, the guy lied to you. What’s to say this isn’t some trap to convince you to say yes?”

I gave him a disapproving look to try and get him to shut up. “I wish he had told me this.”

“He tried.” Charlie seemed guilty for some reason. “He didn’t go through with it because he thought you’d shoot him down. I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but I’m worried about him.”

I couldn’t help but recall the expression of utter devastation on Dean’s face when I told him that I never wanted to see him again. “Why? What’s he going to do?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen him as bad as this since Samael got put in the Cage. He won’t tell me what he’s planning, but I know he’ll have some stupid idea that is probably going to get him killed. I’ve tried to talk to him, but I can’t reason with him. Will you come with me and talk to him? Maybe you can find out what he’s up to. At least you’ll be able stop him from doing anything stupid.” Charlie examined me thoughtfully. “He was better with you than I’ve seen him in a long time.”

“We’re coming, too.” Gabriel said stubbornly. “After all we’ve been through, I’m not letting Cassie go off alone with one of you winged assholes again.”

I was about to make some kind of retort, but Anna got there first. Resting a firm hand on Gabriel’s shoulder, she said, “Castiel can manage without us, Gabe. I don’t like it either, but it’s too dangerous letting you anywhere near where Lucifer is.”

“That’s just as much reason for Castiel not to go.” Gabriel retorted. “If Michael needs him as a vessel, we’re basically sending Cas gift-wrapped to him ready to start the Apocalypse.”

“I’m not a child anymore, Gabriel. I can look after myself. I’m not going to be stupid enough to say yes.” I glared at him.

“I need to talk to Cas alone for a moment,” Anna looked around at all of us, as though she was daring us to question her judgement.

 

Taking me downstairs into the panic room, she took a knife and drew a sigil I’d never seen before on the door. “Angel warding. I found it in one of Dad’s old books. So no one can overhear this conversation.” Anna explained when she saw my look of bemusement.

“What is it, Anna? If you’re going to tell me not to go…” I said tiredly before she cut me off.

“Do you like him?”

“What?” I stared at her, bemused.

“I’ve heard how you talk about him, Castiel. You can’t lie to me. Do you like him?”

“I…I don’t know,” I looked at the ground, scuffing my feet awkwardly. “I mean, I think so. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. I can’t describe how I feel when I’m near him.”

“I get it.” Anna smiled. “When he looks at you, you feel like your heart’s so full it could burst and you can’t look away from him, no matter how hard you try. If he hurts you in some way, it’s the most painful thing in the world, but you’d rather have him angry at you than never see him again. And when he smiles, you’ve never seen anything more wonderful…” She tailed off, evidently lost in thoughts of the past.

“That’s it exactly.” I looked at Anna thoughtfully. “I never realised that you loved someone. Who is he?”

“His name was Balthazar.” She blushed.

“Balthazar? I didn’t know…”

I remembered Balthazar only too well. He was a petty thief who dealt in supernatural objects for high prices. I had a grudging respect for the man; he’d outwitted Gabriel and me too many times for us not to. I would say that we’d almost become friends. When I was in the last months of trying to escape my demon deal, it transpired that he also had a deal with a crossroads demon that was due to expire soon. We’d tried to save him, but we weren’t quick enough. I still felt guilty about it.

“It’s not important.” Anna moved over to one of the lockers where we kept some of the more powerful weapons in our arsenal and pulled out an old box. “You should take this. Just in case things go wrong.” She pulled out a gun that was immediately familiar to me. The Colt. A gun that could kill anything in this earth, no matter how powerful. I had read the legends about it, but never believed that it existed before I saw it for real.

“How did you find this?” I took the gun from her, seeing how it felt in my hand.

“When we were doing our research, Gabe and I managed to find a tip in one of your dad’s old journals about where we could find it. We went out and tracked it down a week or so ago. We thought it could come in handy.” Anna smiled thinly. “If something happens when you’re off with Charlie, you might have to use it. I don’t think archangels will be immune.”

I glared at her, resenting the implication in her remark. “Dean won’t hurt me, Anna.” I still had my doubts about him, but I was at least sure of that.

“I know,” she looked away, “I just want to make sure you’re safe. Be careful, Cas.”

“I will.”

We exited the panic room to find Charlie waiting for us.

“I’m ready to come with you,” I addressed her.

Charlie smiled. “Thanks, Castiel. I appreciate you trusting me.”

Taking hold of my arm, she transported us away with a rustle of her wings.


	7. Chapter 7

We soon found ourselves in the deserted car park of one of the low-end motels that hunters were so fond of frequenting.

Charlie patted my arm encouragingly. “Dean’s in Room 40. I’ll let you go and speak to him alone. Last time I came, he threatened to smite me if I tried to talk to him again.”

She wasn’t exactly filling me with confidence for the task ahead. “What makes you think I’ll have any more success talking to him?”

“Dean likes you,” Charlie said simply, pulling yet another candy bar out from her jacket and starting to munch on it. “The way my brother described you, you seemed helpful…and dreamy.”

I squinted at her, confused. “I don’t understand. Why would Dean say I was…”

I stopped speaking when Charlie disappeared, shooting me one last cheeky grin. Damn angels. I hated it when they zapped off like that.

 

I made my way to Room 40, my heart thumping in my chest. Loitering outside for a few minutes to get up the courage to talk to Dean, I eventually knocked hesitantly on the door.

The door burst open after a few seconds. “Charlie, how many times do I have to tell you? I’m not one for that touchy-feely, self-help crap so you can shove it up your ass and…” Dean tailed off when he saw me, his face going deliberately blank of expression. He looked awful with bags under his eyes and his skin devoid of any colour. There was also a distinctly strong smell of alcohol coming from him.

“Dean. We need to talk.”

 

………………

 

Wordlessly, Dean ushered me into the motel room and gestured for me to sit down.

I shook my head; I preferred to remain standing. We stood silently together for several moments.

Dean eventually spoke. “Are you here to gank me, Castiel? ‘Cause if you are, you don’t need to bother. I’ll be dead soon enough with or without your help.”

This wasn’t what I was expecting. I frowned. “Why would I want to do that to you, Dean?”

“You made how you feel about me pretty clear last time we spoke.” Dean shrugged. His voice was full of bitterness. “I guessed you’d want to get rid of the guy who’s trying to end the world you care so much about.”

“Charlie talked to me. She told me everything.”

Dean scowled, “She had no right to do that.”

“I knew that you must have a good reason. I just wish you’d told me yourself,” I said quietly.

“I tried. You wouldn’t listen.” Dean looked away. “You shouldn’t be here, Cas. I’m poison. You’ll just get hurt if you stick around.”

“No, you’re not. You’re my friend. I want to be here, Dean. I want to help.”

“You don’t even know what I’m planning on doing.”

“I don’t care. I just don’t want you to go through this alone.” Only when I said it did I realise how true it was. “I can’t imagine how hard it must be for you, having to rebel against your family.”

“That doesn’t take much to imagine. It sucks ass, believe me.” Dean frowned. “I don’t understand you at times, Cas. I betrayed you and your family in every way possible, but you’re still here saying I’m your friend and that you want to help me. It doesn’t make sense. You can’t just act like I’m not going to try to free Lucifer, ‘cause that’s going to happen. I can’t just leave him down there. He’s my brother.” His voice cracked with anguish as he spoke about Samael.

“I understand what it means to want to do anything to save your brother, especially when the only option is stupid and highly dangerous,” I said quietly. “I judged you too harshly before. This is me doing the right thing.”

Dean sighed. “If you insist, you can come. But on one condition, you must do everything I tell you. This isn’t a partnership, it’s a dictatorship. We can’t afford to screw this up. The fate of the world is in the balance.”

“Fine. I agree.”

 

I had no intention of doing whatever Dean told me, but he didn’t need to know that. This way at least, I would be able to go with him and stop him from doing anything idiotic.

 

…………………………………

 

As we packed up Dean’s things and drove off in the Impala, Dean told me a little bit more about what he was going to do. The motel Dean had been staying in was in Ilchester in Maryland. Outside of town was an abandoned convent, St Mary’s, that had been closed after a load of the nuns there had been massacred by one of the priests during vespers twelve years previously. I knew about the convent only too well. It was where my father had died at Lilith’s hand, after all. Dean explained that the convent was the location of the entrance to the Cage. Lilith had been there all those years ago to try to communicate with Lucifer. That was how she had found out about the Seals. Dean’s plan was that we should summon Lilith and kill her to break the final seal. She had broken the other 65, and considering that she wanted Lucifer free as well, she should just stand by and let us finish what I had started. At least, that was what we hoped would happen.

“I want to be the one who kills her.” I was decided on that point. I wanted revenge for my family.

Dean looked grim, but still nodded in approval. “She’s not your usual demon. You’ll need to use the angel blade I gave you.”

“No need. I’ve got something better.” I pulled out the Colt to show him.

“Cas, is that what I think it is? Where did you get it?”

“Anna,” I said simply. “She thought that I might need it.”

Dean looked away. It was obvious that he knew that Anna thought the gun might be the only thing that would protect me from him.

“When the Cage is opened, you’re going to have to get out fast. It’ll be too dangerous for you to stay,” Dean remarked quietly, trying to break the awkward silence between us.

That wasn’t going to happen. I had no intention of leaving.

“What do you think will happen?”

“I don’t know.” Dean was doing his best to hide his nervousness. “I guess Sam’ll be pretty pissed. We didn’t exactly leave each other on the best of terms when I saw him last.”

“You’re his family. He’ll forgive you.”

There was another awkward silence.

Then Dean sighed. “Cas, those things I said, when you found out who I was…I didn’t really mean it, you know. I mean, when I first met you, all I wanted to do was save my brother. Hell, that’s still what I want. It’s just, that’s not my only priority now. When I got to know you…I couldn’t do that to you. I tried to push you away, I tried to tell myself you’d be better off in Paradise than suffering on Earth. I’m not going to do that now, though.” He nervously tapped out an uneven rhythm on the steering wheel with his fingers. “I don’t want to be the archangel Michael anymore. All I did when I was him was screw up. These last few weeks, being Dean, I’ve felt better than I have in years. You’re like family to me, Cas. You trusted me, despite everything. I’m not going to betray you again.”

I nodded in agreement, but said nothing else. There was no need to.

 

Dean pulled out one of the cassettes from the car’s glove box and shoved it into the player.

“We might as well do this in style.” He grinned as Bon Jovi started playing.

I sighed when I heard what song it was. More classic rock. “Bon Jovi? Really?”

“Hey, Bon Jovi rocks! On occasion.” Dean said when he saw how disapproving I looked.

 

_I walk these streets, a loaded six string on my back_

_I play for keeps, 'cause I might not make it back_

 

“Come on, sing with me, man.” He leaned over, looking at me pleadingly.

I couldn’t resist that look. I started to sing along with Dean, hesitantly at first.

 

I’ve been everywhere, and I'm standing tall

I've seen a million faces and I've rocked them all

 

_I'm a cowboy,on a steel horse I ride_

_I'm wanted dead or alive_

_I'm a cowboy, I got the night on my side_

_I'm wanted dead or alive_

 

I couldn’t help but be struck how happy I was, despite the circumstances. Dean and I were off to let loose the Devil and potentially change the world as we knew it, but I was happy because I was with the man I loved and trusted that he would do the right thing. I shouldn’t want this, but I did. Dean was as much my family now as Gabriel and Anna ever were. I couldn’t change that now. More importantly, I didn’t want to. _“Please let him stay.”_ I prayed silently as we drove towards our destination. _“I can’t lose him again. Not now.”_

 

…………………………

 

We soon pulled up outside the abandoned convent. Dean stopped me from getting out of the car, listening intently for a few moments.

“Lilith’s already here. I can sense her. She’s not alone either.”

I loaded the Colt, putting it in my trench coat pocket. Dean and I then both pulled out our angel blades before heading into the convent.

 

Two black-eyed sentries were waiting for us through the doorway in a long passageway. We took them down effortlessly with a few slashes of our knives. Dean gestured silently towards a large oak doorway ahead of us at the end of the corridor. I nodded and followed his lead, heading silently towards the door. The tableau in the chapel was not quite what I had expected. Seven demons stood facing the door, evidently prepared for a fight. At the altar, a little girl knelt in silent prayer, whispering over a cup filled with what looked like blood. Lilith. A dead body lay at her feet.

“Stand down, Lilith.” Dean sounded tense. “You know why we’re here. You want this as much as we do.”

The little girl rose from her prayers and turned to face us. “Don’t expect me to just go without a fight, Michael. I at least want that dignity. Besides, you were kind enough to bring me a consolation prize. I wonder if little Cassie will scream as much as his father did when I ripped the skin off his body.”

I tightened my hold on my blade, but my hands were shaking. “You’re going to pay for what you did to my family, Lilith. It’s not Michael you need to worry about. It’s me.”

Lilith shrugged. “We’ll see about that. Have fun, boys.”

 

The seven demons started to move towards us, pulling out knives. We positioned ourselves so we were back to back, but there were too many of them for us to stand much of a chance. Four demons headed straight for me. I was the one Lilith really wanted dead, after all. She needed Dean to open the Cage. It wasn’t like the knives could do him any real damage, either. Changing which hand I held my angel blade in, I pulled out the Colt and shot one of them with it. That would even up my odds of survival slightly. One of the remaining demons aimed a blow at my chest. I caught its arm before its knife could hit its mark, twisting the arm behind its back so it was unable to attack me. I positioned myself behind the demon and stabbed it in the back with my angel blade. The remaining demons were prevented from assaulting me as I was currently using their fellow as a human shield, but I was equally handicapped by the dead body. The Colt didn’t have so many bullets that I could afford to waste them on lowlife black-eyed demons. Throwing the dead demon aside, I raised my blade to attack the larger of the two demons confronting me and threw it at his chest. The familiar flickering red light that accompanied the death of a demon appeared behind the face of its vessel, and then it was gone. The other demon snarled savagely, and before I could rush headlong at it to disarm them of their weapon, an invisible hand gripped tight around my throat and flung me to the chapel wall. My vision blurred as I started to lose consciousness, deprived of air.

 

Dimly, as though I was a great distance away, I heard a familiar voice yelling, “You let go of him, you black-eyed son of a bitch!”

Suddenly, I felt the vice-like grip around my neck loosen. I collapsed on the floor. Blinking hazily, I saw Dean crouched next to me, full of concern. “Cas, are you alright?”

“I think so,” I groaned as I tried to stand up. Dean offered me a hand and pulled me up.

As he did so, I heard the sound of someone laughing. We turned to see Lilith chuckling. “Alistair was right about you two. You do share a ‘profound bond’.” She said mockingly. “I must admit, I hadn’t expected to see you both here. Not that I’m complaining. Now which one of you would be most fun to get rid of, that’s the question? Heaven’s blunt instrument? Or Daddy’s little soldier?” She raised her hand to attack one of us, I couldn’t be sure who.

“Neither.” I quickly pulled the Colt out of my pocket and shot her between the eyes.

“That was for my family, you bitch,” I whispered softly as her body fell to the floor.

 

Blood began to ooze out of her body, forming a sigil that I’d never seen before on the chapel floor.

“It’s starting.” Dean’s voice was quiet. “You need to get out now.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Castiel, we talked about this. I’m not telling you twice. Get out of here or God help me, I will zap you away myself.” Dean sighed.

I had nothing to lose now. Nothing except Dean.

I stood in front of him, hands resting on his shoulders so he was forced to look me in the eye. “Then you’re coming with me. I’m not leaving here without you.”

“There’s only one way this can end well and it ain’t gonna happen if you’re going to be a frigging child about it.” Dean looked away. “Heaven’s never going to let Sammy and me just live normal lives once he’s out. We won’t be able to fight them off. Especially without our true vessels.”

Oh God. I realised what he’d been planning. “And if he can’t get out…You’re going to jump in the cage.”

“I can’t just leave him, Cas.” A single tear rolled down Dean’s cheek. “He’s my brother. I can’t leave him down there alone.”

“Take me with you.”

“What?”

“You heard what I said. Take me with you.”

“I’m not letting you do that. Sam’ll be in his true form with no vessel. I don’t know if you’ll be able to survive that. Heck, I don’t know what he could do to you. I won’t be able to protect you, Cas.” Dean tried to push me away, to urge me to run, but I wouldn’t let him. “I don’t want you here.”

The words cut through me, but I was too far gone to turn back now.

 

We hadn’t talked about when he kissed me in that warehouse. I didn’t want to mention it and he didn’t raise the topic so I couldn’t know why he’d done it. I didn’t know if he already knew how I felt, if he felt the same way. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to let him go without telling him how I felt about him.

“I don’t care. I need you, Dean. I…I love you.” I pulled Dean towards me in a warm embrace, kissing him tenderly on the lips.

He tried to fight me off at first, but when he realised I wasn’t going to let go, he started to kiss me back, hesitantly at first. White light poured from the sigil and surrounded us. I pulled Dean ever closer. We were both crying slightly and I still wasn’t sure if he was going to push me away any moment, but it was Heaven on earth.

“Close your eyes.” Dean moved his lips away from mine slightly. “He’s starting to come out now. You can’t see his true form. It could burn out your eyes.”

I closed my eyes. I expected Dean to let go of me or something, but to my surprise, I felt his lips touch mine gently and his hands brush through my hair. We stood like that for a while, folded in each other’s arms. Then Dean moved away. I opened my eyes to see him kneeling on the floor beside the blood sigil, now burnt into the stone slabs paving the chapel floor, tracing the symbol absent-mindedly with his fingers.

“He’s free, Cas. We did it. We saved him.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

“We should go.” I went over to Dean, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “It isn’t safe here. Heaven and Hell will soon realise what we’ve done.”

I was also worried about Gabriel. He was Lucifer’s true vessel, after all. Although Dean was willing not to claim me as his vessel, I couldn’t rely on Samael not doing the same. After all, he was the Devil, no matter how much faith Dean had in him.

Dean stood up slowly. “You’re right. We need to get back to Sioux Falls quickly. I can’t mojo us back, though. I had to smite some of those demons so I’m pretty burnt out right now.”

I could tell. He didn’t look in a good way. He was breathing heavily, and he looked pale.

“Could we summon Charlie? She was the one who brought me to you.”

“No, she’d be better off sticking round with your folks. They’ll be as much of a target as we are and at least she can protect them. We’ll drive instead. You can text them a warning.”

I nodded in approval, and we made to get in the car. I pulled out my phone and sent Gabriel a brief text.

_We did it. All the Seals are broken. You need to put up sigils to safeguard the salvage yard. Summon Charlie, she’ll show you what to do. We’re on our way back. C_

I got a text back almost immediately. _So, your boy-toy angel talked you round then? G_

I couldn’t help sighing at that. Anna evidently couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Then again, Gabriel knew me well enough to know I wouldn’t have forgiven Dean so easily if I didn’t care about him. He’d probably worked it out on his own. At least he seemed to be fairly understanding about the Seals. I quickly tapped back a reply.

_In his position, I’d have done the same for you. And Dean is not my boy-toy. C_

_He so is. G_

Gabriel was evidently going to be infuriating.

_Be nice when we get home. Dean won’t appreciate it and he could smite you. C_

_You know me, I’m always tactful._ (I couldn’t resist snorting in derision at that. Gabriel was the very antithesis of tact.) _So does he know yet? G_

_Know what? C_

_About you wanting to jump his bones, to know him biblically, to do the horizontal mambo? G_

_Not everything is about sex, Gabriel. And yes, he knows how I feel. C_

_And…? G_

_I don’t know. I was a little too busy trying to free the Devil at the time. C_

_Then speak to him properly or Anna and I will trap you two in Holy Fire until you two muttonheads man up and talk about your feelings. Charlie says she will help too. G_

_You’re an assbutt. C_

_That’s why you love me. G_

I put my phone away, smiling slightly at how easily Gabriel and I had resumed our usual brotherly bickering after our recent fall-out.

Dean noticed my expression and asked, “What are you smiling about?”

“Our siblings are conspiring against us. They seem to think that trapping us in a room together is in order.” I looked away sheepishly, not sure how he was going to react.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Dean blushing. “I told Charlie not to get involved. Don’t worry, I’ll deal with her. You’re not going to get pressured into anything you don’t want to.”

“What if I want it?”

“Want what?” Dean looked confused for a second, then went a deeper shade of red when he realised. “Oh. About that…”

“It’s fine, Dean, you don’t have to say it. I’m happy to forget about what happened in that chapel if you are.” I cut him off quickly.

“Cas, I don’t want to forget it.” Dean looked seriously at me. “I thought you were just doing what you had to do to stop me from jumping in the Cage.”

“When you kissed me, at that warehouse when we were fighting, I thought you were trying to use my feelings against me to make me stay.” I admitted, and then asked tentatively, “Do you really want this?”

“Of course I want it!” Dean beamed at me. “I’ve wanted this since the day I saw your soul in Hell.”

“But…why?” I still couldn’t understand. Why would the archangel Michael want a relationship with me?

“Because I love you, Cas.” Dean took one of his hands from the steering wheel, moving it so it was resting lightly on my knee.

“I love you too, Dean.” I took his hand and squeezed it gently, smiling back at him.

 

 

………………………

 

We didn’t talk much on the car journey to South Dakota. There wasn’t much that needed saying really. We had each other, and that was enough. Dean and I took turns driving while whoever was shotgun slept. Dean was becoming more human the more battered his vessel became. As his vessel was burning up, he needed to conserve his angelic energy to try and make it last. I hated to see how fragile he was looking these days, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. Nothing that Dean would let me do at any rate. And really, would it be worth it? To have Dean alive and safe from Heaven’s tortures, but never to be properly alive again myself? To never be able to see him face to face? To never be able to kiss him again? It would be the worst kind of torture.

 

Finally, we passed the boundary signs that showed we had reached Sioux Falls and drove into the salvage yard. No one came out to meet us. Although I was sure everything was alright, I couldn’t help but feel apprehensive.

“I can’t sense them. They must’ve put up the sigils. No angel will be able to find them now.” Dean had noticed my unease.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was not right, though. That we were being watched by someone, somewhere. I did my best to ignore it as we went inside.

Dean took my hand as we entered the house, shooting me one of his classic broad grins. The gesture was not lost on our respective families, waiting on us in the living room.

Anna smiled knowingly while Gabriel, doing his best to look as innocent as possible, asked, “So, which one of you said the ‘L’ word first? Charlie and I have a bet on.”

“That depends. What answer makes you lose?” I could tell Dean was going to have fun doing his best to wind my brother up.

Gabriel scowled, “Come on, Cassie, help me out here. I’ve got a bottle of scotch and a Casa Erotica DVD riding on this.”

I looked at Charlie judgementally. Archangels watching porn was not something I would necessarily have anticipated.

“What? It’s a guilty pleasure! At least I’m not obsessed with Doctor Sexy M.D. like Dean is.” She shrugged. “Don’t be a spoilsport, Dean. A bet’s a bet.”

I wasn’t in the mood to put up with their bickering. We had work to do.

I sighed. “For your information, I was the first one to use the ‘L’ word, as you put it. Now can we please get on? Don’t you have anything better to do than discuss my romantic inclinations?”

Gabriel groaned while Charlie looked triumphant. He slid a DVD across the table towards the angel.

“No, they don’t. Although we are all very happy for you both.” Anna smiled sympathetically at me. “We’ve found something you might be interested in. It was in the latest issue of Ilchester’s local paper.”

 

She shoved over a printout of a news article about a Stanford law student who’d vanished from Ilchester. Although he’d not been missing long, people were very concerned for his safety. The boy had lost his fiancée, Jessica Moore, in a house fire only a month or two ago and had taken it badly. When he’d not shown up for his regular appointment with his psychologist, people had started getting worried. The article was captioned with a picture, showing a tall floppy-haired man smiling at the camera, his arm round a pretty blonde girl. Apparently the only clue to what could have happened to him was that neighbours had seen a bright white light form around the house the previous evening when we’d opened the Cage.

 

Dean read the article intently. “You’re right, this is useful. Sounds like a classic case of angelic possession to me. At least we know now what Sammy’s vessel looks like.”

I felt an ache in my stomach. Mine and Gabriel’s refusal to be vessels, while the right thing to do, was affecting other people. This poor kid didn’t need to be caught up in the Apocalypse. He just had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Dean squeezed my hand reassuringly and whispered softly, “No one else is going to get hurt, Cas, okay?”

“Okay.” I tried to smile back at him. We were interrupted from our reveries by a knock at the door.

Anna frowned, “That’s odd. We’re not expecting any hunters. I’ll go check it.”

She went to open the door; then we heard her gasp. I reached into my trench coat pocket to get a hold of my angel blade so I was prepared for trouble. I saw Charlie and Dean do the same while Gabriel grabbed his gun.

“I’m here to see my brother. We need to talk.”

A male voice. Softly spoken, persuasive.

“You’d best come in.” Anna sounded hesitant.

When she came back through, her face was pale. Behind her came a giant of a man, his long hair swept haphazardly out of his face. The man from the article.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dean put down his angel blade and slowly move towards the new arrival.

“Samael.” It looked like he couldn’t quite believe that he was finally seeing his brother after so many years apart.

The Devil smiled hesitantly. “Michael.”

 

……………………………

 

Anna, Gabriel, and I stood awkwardly to one side as Dean embraced Samael warmly. Charlie had disappeared off somewhere. I think she wanted to avoid getting involved. None of us could know what was going to happen between the brothers.

“It’s Dean now, Sammy. I don’t want to be that jackass who flung you into the Pit anymore.”

“Then you’ve changed your mind? You agree with me now?” Sam inquired hesitantly. “I see you found our true vessels. We can fight Heaven together, brother. It’ll be like old times.”

“Not exactly.” Dean looked uncomfortable. “Sam, I don’t want to take Cas as my vessel. Enough people have been hurt in this stupid war. We can find some other way to get Heaven off our asses.”

“Oh, so, it’s ‘Cas’ now then. You should have known better than to make friends with your intended vessel, Michael. Humans are nothing but trouble.” Sam glared at me and continued to talk as though we weren’t there. “They’re nothing but corrupt, flawed, and fragile beings.”

“Are we really so much better than them? Yeah, sure, they’re not perfect, but we’re no better. You don’t know what they did to me in Heaven, our own family. They wanted me to kill you, Sammy. And when I said no, they tortured me.” Dean clenched his fists, trying to block out the painful memory. “Damn right humans are flawed. But a lot of them try. To do better, to forgive. You’ve never given them a chance.”

“It’s because of them that you locked me up, remember? It was between me and them and you chose them.” Sam looked at the floor to avoid Dean’s gaze. “What happens when you've decided I can't be trusted again? I mean, what are you going to do to me next time? Lock me up again? Kill me? Or stand back and watch while someone else does? Do you have any idea what it feels like to watch your brother just…”

Dean interrupted him, “Don’t you dare say that. Don’t even think it. Because it wasn’t like that. It never was. You were going dark side, Sam. People were getting hurt. I had to do something before anyone else got hurt. If it hadn’t been me, someone else would’ve had to go after you and believe me, you don’t want to know what some of those douchebags were planning. Sammy, come on. I let you out of that Cage the moment I could escape Heaven. I didn’t know what the hell you’d do, but I still did it knowing that I wasn’t going to fight you ever again. I'm begging you here, man. We can fix this. Trust me again. Please.”

Sam ran a hand nervously through his hair. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Stay with us for a bit and we’ll figure it out, okay? Just like we always do.” Dean took his brother’s shoulders, forcing the taller man to look him in the eyes. “That is okay, right guys?”

I smiled warmly at Sam, wanting to make him welcome. This couldn’t be easy for him. “Of course you can stay, Samael. Any friend of Dean’s is a friend of ours. I’m Castiel. It’s good to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.” I held out my hand for him to shake.

Sam stared at my hand bewildered for a few seconds, apparently undecided as to whether he should shake my hand or not.

After an awkward pause, I lowered my hand and looked at the floor, embarrassed.

There was silence.

“Well, I’m Gabriel, Cassie’s brother. But you probably knew that, what with me being your vessel and all. And this is our friend, Anna.” Gabriel eventually broke the awkward silence, doing his best to liven up the mood. Anna smiled slightly at Sam, the smile not quite reaching her eyes. “I don’t suppose you like The Rolling Stones? ‘Cause there’s a song of theirs I think you’d love to hear…”

 

………………………………

 

I’d been a hunter for most of my life and seen some crazy things in that time, but nothing could beat the surreal situation of us having the Devil to stay as a houseguest. Samael was not what I would have pictured if someone had asked me to describe the Devil. I wouldn’t have anticipated that Lucifer would be a mild-mannered individual who preferred to spend most of his time reading through our extensive collection of supernatural texts rather than terrorising the local human populace. That’s all we spent most of our time doing, desperately trying to find a way for Sam and Dean to stop their vessels from burning out and being summoned back to Heaven. We also needed to find some way of protecting them from Heaven. Ironically, Hell shouldn’t be too much of a problem: Sam still commanded enough respect there to make them unlikely to turn against him for the moment.

 

Although Samael was courteous to me and my family, he obviously disliked me intensely. He saw me and my friendship with Dean as nothing more than a hindrance to him and his brother having a chance at defending themselves against Heaven. I was inclined to agree with him. Yet it did make the atmosphere in the house very unpleasant. Every time Samael came across Dean and I acting particularly close, he glared at me and remained sullen for several hours. It didn’t take long for Dean to pick up on this, despite the best efforts of the rest of our families to smooth over the awkwardness. He hadn’t dared tell Sam about us. He’d had enough trouble convincing Samael that he didn’t want to be called “Michael” any more and that we humans were his friends instead of just being useful allies. Once he realised how Sam felt about our friendship, the few moments we had together dwindled down until we did nothing more but smile at each other occasionally. It didn’t take much for me to realise what the problem was, especially after I accidentally heard them talking one day.

 

………………………………

 

_I was passing by the spare room where the angels had based themselves when I heard whispered talking. Usually I would frown upon eavesdropping, but Dean had been so distant the last few days and I heard my name mentioned. I couldn’t help but loiter to see what they were talking about._

_“Cas is a good guy, Sammy. I don’t see why you dislike him so much.”_

_“The guy’s forcing you to use a burnt out vessel, Michael. Like that’s going to end any other way than with you getting dragged back to ‘Bible Camp’. You told me what happened to you there before. Don’t pretend that you’re okay with that, ‘cause I’m definitely not.”_

_“Don’t call me that. How many times do I have to tell you, I’m Dean now.”_

_“Castiel’s influence, I guess? How do you know he’s not just using you for his own ends, Dean?” Sam’s voice was particularly venomous when he used Dean’s chosen name._

_“Cas wouldn’t do that. He’s my friend.” Dean sounded defensive._

_“What if he sells us out to Heaven? It wouldn’t be the first time our family have bargained to return people’s departed loved ones to them in return for what they want.”_

_“Stop worrying so much. He helped me get you out, Sam. How much more proof do you need that he’s on our side?”_

_“If you’re sure…” Sam didn’t sound convinced. He was probably trying to avoid an argument with his brother. “You should be careful, though. I’ve seen how he looks at you.”_

_“And what do you mean by that?”_

_Sam sighed. “You and him…an angel and a human…it would be an abomination, Dean, and you know it.”_

_Considering Sam had been cast out of Heaven for creating demons and was referred to as an abomination in most religious texts, this seemed a little hypocritical to me. Dean didn’t take it that way, though._

_“There’s nothing going on with me and Cas. Quit bothering me about it. I’m not stupid. I know what everyone would say. I don’t think of him like that and you know it.”_

 

_How ironic that Dean, who had defied Heaven and broken countless rules to do what he believed was right, was afraid to tell his brother about this last breach of conduct._

 

_I didn’t believe that he really felt that way. We’d been through enough together for me to trust him implicitly. I knew that Dean would never have lied to me about such a thing. But for those feelings to be denied, and to Dean’s closest relation at that, whose opinion mattered so much to him, was a deep betrayal. I walked away silently, doing my best to ignore the tears cascading down my cheeks._

 

……………………

 

I shut myself off more and more frequently after that. I hated seeing how Dean’s eyes flicked over to Sam whenever we spent any length of time together. I hated how he flinched when I stood close to him or avoided looking me in the eye when we spoke. Charlie popped by too infrequently to say anything about it, which in many ways was a blessing. I couldn’t take many more looks of pity. Anna and Gabriel had picked up on the tension between us as well. Neither of their responses was overly helpful in improving the situation. Anna’s insistence on trying to talk to me about Dean just made me more depressed; I’d never exactly been the sharing and caring type. Gabriel opted for the passive aggressive approach, going out of his way to annoy Dean and Sam at every opportunity as punishment for hurting me. Admittedly, some of the pranks were quite funny (Dean’s reaction when Gabriel let the Impala’s tires down was priceless), but they would have been a lot more enjoyable had I not been aware that Gabriel was seeking to give the brothers their “just desserts” instead of merely wanting some light entertainment. I was also concerned that he would go too far and end up getting smited. Only Gabriel would think that pranking the Devil was a good idea.

 

One thing I was sure of. I couldn’t hate Dean. He had his reasons for acting like this, and I didn’t feel that it was right of me to judge him for it. It was far easier for me to blame Samael for the situation I had found myself in. I might have let that show a little in my dealings with him, but aside from a few frowns from Dean when I had overstepped the mark somewhat, I would like to think that I didn’t take it out on him too much.

 

Things weren’t improved by our failure to find anything that might help Dean and Samael keep their vessels. We’d been looking through my father’s extensive library on the supernatural for days and had found nothing. Charlie had been looking at various less accessible manuscripts as well in her travels around the world. I’d practically given up hope when Charlie finally stumbled across something in an old scroll in Enochian that she’d picked up somewhere.

“Hey, you guys should take a look at this. I think I’ve found the full version of the spell Dean used to create the Cage Samael was imprisoned in.”

Sam scowled a little. “Why do we need that? It’s not like we’re going to be using it again.”

“Of course not.” Charlie rolled her eyes. “There’s something in here though that could come in handy.”

That was enough to get our attention. Dean snatched the scroll off her and started to glance through it himself. Sam craned over his shoulder to read it as well.

“What have you found?” I asked curiously.

“When you and Dean sprung open the Cage, it wasn’t destroyed. It’s still there, waiting to be reopened.”

“So Heaven could just shove Samsquatch back into the Pit when they catch up with him and Dean then?” Gabriel frowned. “That is bad news, right?”

“Yeah, but Heaven probably doesn’t know that the Cage is still there. It’s a good thing Dean used such an obscure spell. More importantly, though, we could use the Cage to trap someone.” Charlie’s warm smile certainly seemed encouraging. “From what I can tell, most of Heaven doesn’t really want there to be a big show-down anyways. Angels aren’t exactly big on free will, but they’re smart enough to know that an all-out apocalyptic battle would not exactly be risk-free for them. Everything carrying on as usual would probably suit them fine. Sure, some angels wanted Sam out of the Pit to help start some massive demon uprising so they could get the power Heaven won’t give them, and a lot wouldn’t trust Sam an inch ‘cause he got thrown out of Heaven, but they’re the minority. The only one really driving things is our kid brother, Raphael. He’s the one who really wants the Apocalypse.”

“Raphael? Seriously? I mean, I knew he was one of the guys wanting Sam’s head on a platter, but I didn’t think he’d actually want a full-blown Armageddon.” Dean scowled, tossing the scroll aside.

Charlie sighed. “You know Raphael. He was always pissed that you chose Sam even when he went dark-side. I guess he’s taking out all his daddy issues on the planet. Our family is seriously screwed-up.”

“So you think if Raphael was out of the picture, we might stand a chance at getting Heaven off our asses?” We’d all been studiously trying not to look at Sam, so I couldn’t help but be a little surprised when he joined in the conversation.

“He’s the only one really in charge of Heaven. No one really dares question him, especially as he’s in his true vessel. The asshat’s possessing some poor college kid. From what I hear, he threatened to kill Adam Milligan’s mom if he didn’t consent to be his vessel. Without Raphael around, no one’s going to be pushing so hard for an Apocalypse.”

“But without a leader, it’ll be anarchy up there.” I frowned. “Heavenly civil war will undoubtedly have an impact on Earth.”

“Not if another archangel steps in to save the day.” Charlie smiled faintly. “I can’t keep running from Heaven any more. They’re my family too, after all. I might as well do what I can to help.”

“Then I could come home?” Although he tried to hide it, the desperate hope in Sam’s voice was all too plain.

Dean shook his head sadly. “Too many people would be against that. Dad was too damn clear about what he wanted to happen to you. But with Heaven off our asses, we can actually do something about not having our true vessels. We could fall.”

From the horrified looks Charlie and Sam gave him, it was obvious that this was not as simple as Dean was making it sound.

“What do you mean, fall?” Anna asked, reaching for her hunter’s journal to take notes.

“Falling is when an angel tears out their Grace and becomes human. It’s very painful and very dangerous. It’s never been done by an angel already in a human vessel either,” Charlie said quietly.

“Which is why we’re not doing it.” Sam glared at Dean, leaving the lounge.

Dean went after him without a backwards glance at us.

 

………………………

 

I came across him later, drinking a beer in my favourite spot of the salvage yard. Hesitantly, I sat down next to him and cracked open a beer of my own.

“Why can’t he just understand?” Dean sighed. “I like it down here. Heaven has nothing for me anymore. Besides, being human is awesome.”

“What will Sam do? If he doesn’t fall, that is.”

“I don’t know. Probably he’ll be sent back to Hell or something when his vessel burns out. It’s not like he’s still permitted in Heaven, since he got kicked out by Dad. He could stick around on Earth, but he’d have to keep taking new vessels.”

“And he still thinks there’s a chance you could find another way to keep your current vessels?” We’d both accepted by now that the only way other than falling was for Gabriel and I to be Sam and Dean’s vessels, but that wasn’t a conversation I wanted to get into.

Dean seemed equally unwilling to face the unpleasant truth. “Yeah, I guess so.” I put my arm around his shoulder to try and comfort him. He flinched slightly, but snuggled into me when he was sure that no one was watching.

“What do you want, Dean?”

“I don’t know what I want.” Dean shrugged. “I want Sam and me to be brothers again. I want to stay here with you. I want to be human. I want Sam to not have to be on the run anymore. But I guess I can’t have all that, so I suppose I’ll have to choose.”

“He’ll come around. Have you told Sam what you want?”

“There’s no point. It’s not like that’ll change his mind.”

I sighed in exasperation. “Dean, you can’t keep putting everyone else before yourself. Talk to him. Sam will listen to you if you explain what you want. There’s no point giving up just because you think he won’t approve.”

Dean moved away from me, my arm falling from where it had rested on his shoulder. “Quit lecturing me, Cas. You don’t understand.”

“Then help me to.” I stared intently at him. “Because at the moment, all I see is a man too afraid to stand up for what he wants in life.”

“What do you mean, I’m afraid? Just ‘cause I’m thinking about my brother for a change, who I kind of owe big time for chucking into Hell, you’re pissed at me?”

“I’m ‘pissed’ because you continue to put Sam’s wishes before everything else. I know that he’s your brother and you care a great deal for him, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve to be happy. Sam would want you to be happy.”

“Don’t you dare use my brother against me! You don’t know what he wants.”

“I know he doesn’t want you to be with me.”

“So you heard that, huh?” Dean was unable to look me in the eye, the guilt apparent on his face. I couldn’t help but feel a perverse twinge of pleasure at seeing his pain.

“Yes, I did. I thought you trusted me enough to be honest with me, Dean.”

“So that’s what this is all about. You just care that I’m putting Sam before you.” Dean said mockingly. “I never pegged you for being such a selfish bastard, Cas.”

“No, it’s not.” My voice was full of quiet fury. “Yes, it hurts that you are ashamed to be with me when Sam is around, I will admit that. But it’s worse that you care so much about what people think, that you’re not prepared to act on your own feelings. Couldn’t you at least have told me the truth? I would have understood more if you had told me that a relationship with you was impossible.”

“Humans and angels knowing each other in the biblical sense isn’t exactly encouraged by Heaven, Castiel. Our relationship would be seen as an abomination. You could be hunted down. Sam’s right to be concerned. He’s only looking out for my best interests here. But if you want to be a dick to him, go ahead, be my guest. Just don’t come looking to me for sympathy.”

Dean got up to leave. I didn’t try to stop him.


	9. Chapter 9

Dean must have at least listened to some of what I said as I spotted him a while later having an animated conversation with Samael. He noticed me, but deliberately avoided my gaze and didn’t wave hello as he usually did. Fine. Two can play at that game. I nodded curtly at him and went into the study to speak to Anna, who was pouring over her notes on the Cage with Charlie and Gabriel.

“Have you found anything about how to close the Cage?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think so.” Anna idly jotted down some phrases in her journal. “Charlie found some stuff out when she was researching it. Apparently, the rings which give the Four Horsemen their power are all needed to close it. A kind of failsafe for shutting up the Cage again after the sixty six seals had been broken. The Horsemen were trapped in the Cage too along with Sam.”

“The Four Horsemen, as in the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? War, Famine, Pestilence and Death?”

“Yeah, dumbass, what other horsemen would it be?” Gabriel rolled his eyes. “We think we’ve got leads on where War and Famine are, so we’re probably best splitting forces to go get the rings off them. You’d best go with Lover Boy and Moose. We can’t split up you two lovebirds, after all.”

Several hours trapped in a car with two archangels pissed at me. Wonderful. “Which Horseman should we go after?”

“I thought we’d take on War. Given how good he is at turning people against each other, I figured it’d be a stupid idea if we let Sam and Dean anywhere near him,” Charlie said thoughtfully. “So looks you guys are taking on Famine. Be warned, he’s a scary guy. Like, beyond Sauron levels of creepy. Anyone near him gets desperate uncontrollable cravings for whatever they desire most.”

“We can handle it.” I tried to sound more confident than I felt.

“Where do we need to go?”

“Omaha, Nebraska.”

 

……………………

 

A few hours and an awkwardly silent car ride later, we had reached the town where Famine was in all likelihood holed up. The death toll in the area had more than doubled in the last week since Sam had been freed and some of the causes were weirder than many I had seen on the job. One couple had eaten each other to death after their first date. Another man had force-fed himself candy until his gastric band had burst. Charlie was right; it was definitely worth checking out.

 

Using some fake FBI badges Anna had made up, we were able to get into the morgue to see some of the latest victims.

“Looks like Famine’s definitely in town.” Sam examined the body of a man who’d drunk himself to death with a look of distaste. “This man’s soul was taken recently, and I can sense some powerful magic. Someone’s working with Famine to extract the souls, no idea who, though. Whoever it is, it can’t be good.”

I joined him in his inspection of the corpse. “Why would his soul be gone?”

“Famine feeds on them and he’s always hungry for more. He’s not going to stop till everyone in this town eats, drinks and screws themselves to death.”

“How are we going to catch him?” Getting Famine’s ring was sounding harder and harder by the minute.

“Sam and I have lost enough of our angelic mojo that Famine can get to us, too.” Dean grimaced. “I guess our best chance would be to find him quickly, grab his ring, and get the hell out of Dodge as fast as we can.”

No, that definitely wasn’t good. I couldn’t help but wonder what craving Famine would bring out in us. Dean and Sam seemed fairly well-rounded, but that was just the problem. Everyone needs something. Some are just better at hiding it than others. Hopefully we wouldn’t be given a chance to find out our weaknesses.

“This body’s just been brought in and his soul’s still there. If we wait, hopefully we can tail whichever of Famine’s goons shows up to collect it.” Sam pointed to one of the supply closets. “With some sigils, we can wait in there. It’s not like Dean’s any stranger to being stuck in the closet.” He grinned slightly as Dean flipped him off.

“If you show me what the sigils need to look like, I can help you draw them.”

Dean frowned at that. “Cas, the sigils need to be in blood. I don’t think…”

“I’m not incompetent, Dean.” I scowled back at him. “I’ve drawn sigils before.”

We glared at each other.

Surprisingly, it was Sam who broke up our stand-off. “I’ll show you what to do, Cas. Dean can do the sigils on the other closet door.”

 

We worked in silence as we drew the sigils, Dean and I staying as far as it was possible to be away from each other and Sam looking intrigued between us as he tried to work out the reason for our sudden discord. Finally, they were finished and we all piled into the closet. Sam left the closet doors open a crack so that we could see who entered the morgue. We didn’t have long to wait. A few minutes later, a smartly dressed young woman with blonde hair entered the room and headed straight for the corpse we had been examining. From Sam’s soft intake of breath and Dean’s muffled curse, I could tell that she was familiar to them. The woman placed a briefcase on the table then rested a hand on the dead man’s chest. I stared, horrified, as she sunk her hand beneath the man’s flesh and pulled out a pulsing ball of light. The dead man’s soul. That done, she placed the soul in the briefcase and departed.

 

“Jaoel.” Sam said softly as we moved out of the closet to follow her. “I’d have thought better of her.”

“Raphael can be pretty damn persuasive.” Dean muttered. “If Heaven’s involved with Famine, we’re even more screwed than we were before.”

Silently, we followed Jaoel at a close distance, taking care that we weren’t spotted, until she reached a diner a few blocks away from the hospital. Things seemed quiet there. Too quiet.

“You’d better wait out here, Cas. If Raphael’s in there, he could smite you with one look.” I didn’t like Dean’s plan, but I could at least see the wisdom in my providing back-up for the two of them. My hunter’s instincts were screaming that this had all been too easy. Who knew what could be waiting in there for them?

I nodded my silent assent, and the two of them headed into the diner, their blades at the ready in case of attack.

 

I gave it a minute or so and then decided to head around the back of the diner. I would be better able to observe the situation from there, and every instinct told me that the brothers had just walked into a trap.

 

There was no doubt in my mind as I padded carefully through the kitchen that Famine was here. The kitchen floor was littered with dead staff workers. One man lay face-down in the fryer, his face burned from desperately eating fries covered in still boiling oil. Another was surrounded by empty bottles of alcohol. A couple lay on the floor, a bloody knife between them. Love turned sour. I positioned myself in a crouch by the hatch through to the main restaurant, giving me a good vantage point over the scene unfolding there.

 

Dean and Sam stood in the centre of the chaos which had unfolded in the diner. Dead bodies littered the floor there, too. Dean was glaring at a sandy-haired young man who couldn’t have been long out of college and the woman we’d seen earlier. An old man in a wheelchair watched them all intently, smirking. He appeared only able to breathe with the assistance of an oxygen tank, but there seemed to be a kind of hidden strength and power about him. Famine. The mere sight of him made my flesh crawl. I focused on Dean, trying to ignore the desperate need that had arisen in my stomach.

“So you guys are hooking up with Horsemen now. Very classy.” Dean sneered. “That desperate for the Apocalypse, huh?”

The young man glared back at him, “Like you’re doing any better. Lucifer isn’t going to stop wanting to torch the planet just ‘cause you say so. I’m being realistic here.”

“Yeah right, like you actually care about humanity, Raphael.” Dean growled, gesturing to the legions of dead bodies on the floor. “You all but kicked me out for trying to help Sam, jackass. I’m just trying to fix the mess our family’s got itself into.”

“Yeah, the mess you couldn’t be bothered to fix in the first place.” Raphael glared at Dean, his blue eyes full of hatred. “You could have finished this right from the beginning, but you didn’t have the guts. Not where Sam’s concerned. You know, when all this was just starting, the others warned me you might do this, but I didn’t listen. I said that you’d put family before anything else. But the truth is that you don’t really care about us. If I’d been the one stuck in the Cage, you’d have just left me in Hell.”

“You don’t mean that. You’re the one who doesn’t care about family. Just because Dad didn’t bother with you as much as Sammy and I, you think you’ve got the right to take it out on me. Now back off, before I make you.”

Dean gripped his angel blade tightly and positioned himself so he was protecting Sam from any attack Raphael and Jaoel might launch. Sam raised his blade in readiness for any attack.

“Stand down, Raphael. I don’t want to have to fight you.” Sam’s voice was firm. He looked closely at Jaoel. “I thought you were better than this, Jo.”

“You’ve both fallen in every way imaginable. I can’t help you now.” Jaoel deliberately did her best to keep her voice free of emotion. “Why should I give you anything, Lucifer, after everything you have taken from us? Thanks to you, Michael’s been banished from Heaven. You’re an abomination. For that you’re going to pay.”

 

She lunged at Sam with her blade, giving him only a few precious seconds to block the blow.

 

Dean and Raphael began to fight viciously, parrying each other’s blows effortlessly despite the other’s best efforts. I could see that Dean was tiring fast, though. With their weakened powers, Sam and Dean were in no way prepared for this fight, especially against another archangel in what seemed to be his true vessel.

 

I had to try and help them. Since we’d started dealing with angels, Anna and Gabriel had researched what could take them down in a fight. Gabriel had found a manuscript describing how holy oil, when set alight, could trap angels because crossing through the flames would kill them. He’d insisted on giving me a small flask of holy oil after that, just in case. At the time, I’d rolled my eyes at his protectiveness, but the flask was just what I needed now. Pulling out my lighter and tearing a strip off my shirt, I made a make-shift Molotov cocktail. That should be enough to banish one of the angels at least. I would need to be careful. I couldn’t risk harming Sam or Dean, but if I could dispel one of the angels, we would have more equal battlefield conditions.

 

Emerging from the kitchen, I saw that Dean and Sam had swapped opponents. Dean was holding his own against Jaoel, who seemed reluctant to harm him. Sam was faring less well. Raphael had managed to disarm him and was now punching his brother. Sam was verging on unconsciousness and his face was bloody. Bright white light that was probably his Grace was leaking out from his vessel. Raphael hit Sam one more time then raised his blade to land a killing blow.

Without thinking, I yelled, “Hey, assbutt!”

I threw the Molotov cocktail at Raphael and he disappeared, screaming in agony at the holy fire. Jaoel was distracted long enough by Raphael vanishing for Dean to land a killing blow. She stared at him horror-struck as her grace leaked out from her vessel before slumping to the floor, the mark of wings burnt into the floor.

 

Famine started to laugh, a hollow chuckle. We watched horror-struck as he sucked Jo’s grace into himself, licking his lips as he finished consuming what was left of her essence. His lips curled into a smile as he looked between us, probably choosing which of us to attack first. His smile widened as his eyes focused on me. I held his gaze, trying not to show my fear. But it was no use.

 

I felt a desperate craving overtake me, hunger as I’d never felt it before. I wanted, no, I needed red meat. Nothing else would satisfy me. Spotting a pile of burgers on one the tables, I moved towards it and started to eat, oblivious to everything else.

Dimly, I was aware of Dean looking at me, horrified. “What did you do to him?”

Famine shrugged nonchalantly, “Everyone hungers for something, even your precious human friend. Doesn’t take much, hardly a push. Everyone falls in the end.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not going to get us. You don’t affect us.” Dean was full of his usual bravado that covered up any uncertainty he felt.

“You should use your eyes more, Michael, or can’t you see that your brother is already infected. Anger is such an interesting thing to desire, don’t you think? He’s been desperate to be furious at you and your family for generations. I’m only giving him what he wants. Hunger doesn't just come from the body; it also comes from the soul.” Famine chuckled as Sam clenched his fists, trying to block out the emotions Famine was making him feel.

“It’s funny, ‘cause it doesn’t seem to be coming from mine.”

“Yes, I noticed that. Have you wondered how you could even walk in my presence unscathed?”

“I like to think it’s my strength of character.”

“I beg to disagree.” Famine wheeled his chair closer to Dean. “That’s one deep, dark nothing you’ve got there in your soul. Can’t fill it, can you? Oh, you can smirk and joke and lie to your friends, lie to yourself, but not to me! I can see inside you, Michael. I can see how broken you are, how full of guilt. You can't save your friends, and you know it. But you just keep fighting. Just… keep going through the motions. You're not hungry, Michael, because inside, you're already dead. And now, you’re going to die. At your brother’s hand, no less. You can’t change destiny, Michael. It was pointless of you to even try.”

Sure enough, Dean turned around to see Sam glaring angrily at him with his sword drawn. He readied his own sword, but looked pleadingly at his brother. “C’mon, Sam, this isn’t really you pulling the strings in there. You can fight this.”

Sam showed no sign of stopping, raising his sword to make a killing blow. Dean pulled up his own sword to defend himself, but it was a half-hearted effort. Even now, he couldn’t even consider hurting Sam. Sam brought his blade crashing down. At the last moment, though, he turned away from Dean and towards Famine. Famine had failed to reckon on Sam being able to focus his anger on something other than Dean, and Famine had given Sam plenty to be furious about. Sam’s sword cut off Famine’s ring finger cleanly.

“Leave my brother alone,” he muttered softly.

With a scream, Famine began to disintegrate, his flesh peeling off as the souls which he had consumed desperately fought to be free. When there was nothing left but a pile of dust and ash in Famine’s wheelchair, Sam collapsed to the floor. My hunger finally left me, and I unsteadily made my way over to Dean.

“We have to get out now. I may have banished Raphael with the holy oil, but he could return any minute.”

Dean nodded his assent, and together we helped carry Sam to the car, placing his unconscious body in the backseat. Silently, we drove home. There was nothing any of us could say.

 

…………………

 

Dean and Sam had mostly recovered by the time we reached the old salvage yard, although Dean insisted that his brother lie down to recover, having borne the worst part of any injuries suffered.

Before I could follow Dean inside, however, Sam stopped me. “Castiel, did you just Molotov my brother with holy fire?” His expression was unreadable. It was hard to make out what response would be deemed acceptable. “It was hard to make things out in the midst of all the fighting.”

“Yes?” I had meant to sound decisive, but my answer came out more like a question.

Sam let out a long drawn-out sigh. “You saved my ass back there.”

“It was the right thing to do.” I shrugged. “You’d have done the same for me.” It was an obvious lie.

“There’s no need to pretend. I wouldn’t have bothered, and you know it.” Sam ran a hand nervously through his hair. “I’ve been kind of a dick to you the last few days, haven’t I?”

“Yes, you have.” I didn’t see the point in lying.

Sam chuckled at that. “I’m sorry. This is hard for me, too, you know. I’ve spent centuries hating your kind for what happened to me. Now I’m free, I’m suddenly expected to be cool with you guys and how close Dean has gotten to you in particular. I couldn’t see through my prejudice to realise how I’d misjudged you.”

“I understand. I know I have caused some problems for you. In many ways your anger was to be expected.”

“Don’t expect me to suddenly be okay with it, but I’m going to try. You guys look so happy together and it’s wrong of me to try and come between you both. I owe you that much at least. I guess I give you my blessing…not that you need it.” Sam looked away.

I still resented him for his previous antagonistic behaviour, but I could see that he was at least trying to make an effort to accept what I had with Dean. I held out my hand for him to shake, hoping that this time he wouldn’t reject my peace offering. “Thank you, Sam. This means a lot to me. Friends, then?”

“Friends.” Sam took my hand and shook it, smiling slightly at me.

Dean came to the front door to see what was taking us. Leaning against the door frame, he did his best to cover up his concern that we were having a disagreement with a smile. “Are you two idiots coming or what?”

 

Standing there, still bloody from the fight with Raphael and with the light on his hair forming a sandy-coloured halo around his face, Dean had never looked more beautiful to me. Our quarrelling suddenly seemed unimportant. He was here now and that was what mattered. I impulsively went over to him, throwing my arms around his neck and kissing him. He didn’t respond at first. I knew he was looking over at Sam to try and work out his brother’s views on the matter. Sam must have been true to his word and not shown any sign of objecting as Dean was soon kissing me back passionately, pulling me close to him and running his hands feverishly through my hair. I felt his tongue brush lightly against my lips and could have sworn that I heard him murmuring my name softly. Dimly, as though it was happening a great distance away, I heard someone wolf-whistling. Gabriel or Charlie, probably. I was vaguely aware that this was the first time that Dean and I had kissed since we had declared our feelings for each other and that we’d never kissed like this, certainly not in front of our respective families. I didn’t care. All that mattered now was me and Dean, caught in a warm embrace that I wished would never end. Finally, we broke away from each other, Dean looking slightly flushed with his eyes dark with want. I probably didn’t look much better.

 

“Show’s over, folks.” Dean grinned, never taking his eyes off of me. “You can all go inside now.”

I was too busy staring at Dean to pay much attention to Anna’s approving smile or Gabriel slapping me on the back with some inane comment about “And you say he isn’t your boy-toy…”

“You might want to find a more private place for that kind of thing, Dean. I wouldn’t put it past Charlie and Gabriel to make your lives a living hell if they came across you guys being couple-y.” Sam smiled warmly at his brother as he moved to go inside.

“Like I can’t deal with them. Bitch.” Dean’s tone was lightly teasing, but his eyes told a different story. Sam’s acceptance meant a lot to him. This was his way of expressing thanks for that.

“Jerk.” Sam chuckled, moving inside to give us some privacy.

Or at least as much privacy as we could get with Gabriel and Charlie not so subtly spying on us out the living room window.

Dean took my hand in his, squeezing it gently. “I love you so much, Cas. Don’t you ever forget that.”

“I love you too, Dean.”

“We’re going to fix this. I’m never going back to Heaven. I just want to stay here with you.”

“As if I’d give you much choice in the matter.” I kissed him lightly on the cheek. “I’m never going to let you leave.”

 

………………………………

 

When we went inside, Gabriel indicated that we should head down into the basement. “War was working with demons. Apparently, since our two favourite archangels aren’t rushing to start the Apocalypse, Heaven and Hell are making do without them to fight it out and the Horsemen are choosing sides. Some demon called Ruby has taken over running Hell after Lilith died by claiming that she’s controlling it on Lucifer’s behalf. Not everyone’s happy about that, though. We came across this one demon who says she wants to help us.” Gabriel made a face of disgust. “Bela, Queen of the Crossroads. Heard of her?”

Sam shook his head. “She’d have been created after my time. We might as well hear what she’s got to say. But that makes sense about the Horsemen. Famine had teamed up with Raphael. They were going after demons, I think. Famine would be just as happy chowing down on demon souls as human ones.”

We followed Gabriel down into the basement to find Anna and Charlie talking to a brown-haired female trapped in a devil’s trap. This had to be Bela. As we entered the room, she smiled coldly at us.

“Hello, boys. Nice to finally meet you in person. Your reputation precedes you of course.” She spoke with a refined English accent.

“Well that’s funny ‘cause we definitely haven’t heard of you, sweetheart.” Dean said. “What makes a black-eyed bitch like you say that she wants to help us?”

“You really know how to charm a girl.” Bela rolled her eyes. “I’m a crossroads demon, dumbass. The Apocalypse doesn’t exactly benefit me either. I’m in sales. All that death and destruction just wrecks my profit margins. My sources tell me that you want to stop it, so I’m more than happy to help.”

“What’s your price, Bela? You don’t seem like the type to help us just out of the goodness of your heart.” Sam examined her closely.

“You must be Lucifer.” Bela was suddenly far more serious.

“I prefer Samael, but yes, I’m Lucifer.”

“I want Hell.”

“What?” We all stared at her.

She shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, from what I’ve heard on the grapevine, you want to stay out of Hell’s politics and anyone who can say they have Lucifer’s backing would be well-placed to take control. Better the devil you know than that bitch Ruby. She’ll double-cross you the first chance she gets. You leave Hell to me, I tell you where Pestilence and Death are, and then we can all be on our way.”

Sam glanced at Dean to check he approved and then nodded his agreement. “Fine. You can have Hell for all I care. I want nothing more to do with the place.”

Bela smirked, pulling out a contract and unrolling it. “Feel free to check the small print. You know the rules. You’d better pucker up, buttercup.”

 

…………………………

 

When Bela had gone and Sam had emerged from the basement looking slightly flushed and embarrassed, we all gathered round to hear what Sam had found out. He pinned up a large map upon one of the study walls and started to speak.

“So get this, we already know Heaven and Hell are having stand-offs to try and destroy each other and that the Horsemen have started taking sides. War was working with a load of demons and you guys took him down in River Pass, Colorado. Then Dean, Cas and I took down Famine who was with Raphael in Omaha, Nebraska.” He pulled out some pins to mark the locations. “Bela says that Pestilence is on Team Hell and they’ve got him on lock-down in some retirement home in Davenport, Iowa. The demons’ end-game is to start a pandemic that’ll wipe out most of the USA’s population, but Heaven’s putting up a good fight so they’re putting that off for a bit. Meanwhile, Heaven is going back into the smiting of cities business to encourage human obedience; Chicago is set for destruction tomorrow. Death’s on a heavenly leash, and he’s going to wipe it all out.” Sam marked both of those locations on the map as well. “Charlie can zap us between Davenport and Chicago, no trouble, so we can hopefully get the rings off the Horsemen quickly. Once we’ve done that, we can focus on opening up the Cage and getting rid of Raphael before he causes too much damage.”

“How are we going to trap him?” I asked. “He’ll suspect a trap if we try to summon him.”

Dean grinned. “We’ll pull a Wookie, right Sammy?”

“I don’t understand that reference,” Sam and I said in unison, both looking bewildered.

“Heathens,” Dean muttered. “I’ll pretend to have finally realised that we can’t win and show up with Sam in tow as a prisoner, apparently ready to surrender. Raphael’s so arrogant that he won’t be able to resist coming. He’ll reckon that he can outgun us.”

Anna nodded in agreement, inspecting the map closely. “I’ll prepare some holy fire Molotov cocktails and other weapons we can use. That way, if he comes with an army of angels, we at least stand a chance of being able to keep them at bay while you deal with Raphael. Where were you thinking of us making our stand, Sam?”

“Stull Cemetery in Lawrence seems like the best place to me. It’s right in the centre of all the angel and demon standoff areas so they won’t expect it to be a trap so much. Plus, there’s a gateway to Hell there. The boundaries between worlds aren’t so thin so the Cage is more likely to open without too much trouble.” Sam said thoughtfully.

“How about the Horsemen? From what happened with War, these guys seem seriously hard to take down,” Gabriel asked.

“I guess splitting up again is the best plan we’ve got.” Dean frowned. “We haven’t got time to waste and we managed okay enough with the other two.”

“I’ll stay back this time. Someone’s got to get our arsenal ready for the final showdown,” Anna said regretfully.

“I’m out as well, I’m afraid.” Charlie smiled sadly. “I can get you guys there to save time, but I should start rallying the troops in Heaven to our side. It’s going to be chaos once Raphael’s been taken down so I need to try and do at least a bit of damage control.”

Sam looked thoughtful as he mentally planned the best strategy for us to use. “Pestilence is seriously bad news. The guy can make you fatally ill when you’re only in his general vicinity. Dean and I’d better deal with him: we’ve got enough mojo at least to put up a good fight against whatever he throws at us. That leaves Cas and Gabriel with going after Death. He’s like the big daddy reaper, the angel of death so we can kill him, or at least, destroy his physical form. You’ll need this.” Sam shoved a rusty-looking scythe across the table. “Bela managed to get Death’s scythe from somewhere. It’s apparently the only thing that can kill him.”

“Alright then, Cassie. Let’s go kill Death.” Gabriel grinned at me.

 

………………………

 

As so often when hunting, killing Death sounded far simpler than actually accomplishing the deed.

 

We’d been too busy thinking about whether you could actually kill Death or how we could at least deprive him of his ring to worry about the equally difficult business of finding him. So Gabriel and I ended up wandering the deserted streets of Chicago looking for any clue about his whereabouts. At least Death’s destruction of the city was foreshadowed with heavy storm warnings so most people had either got out of town or were just staying indoors.

 

“This is pointless,” Gabriel grumbled. “You’d think all we’d need to do is follow the sound of screaming and look for the piles of dead bodies to find him.”

“Bela said he was here so Death must be around somewhere. If we don’t find him in the next few minutes, we can call Anna for a locating spell or something.”

“Can we at least stop for pizza?” I glared at him.

“What? I’m hungry.” Gabriel whined. “It’ll only take a minute anyways.”

I ignored him and continued to walk down the street. As I turned the corner, something caught my eye. A white 1959 Cadillac.

“And I looked, and beheld a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.” I muttered softly, remembering reading Revelations years ago in the yellowed pages of my battered King James Bible.

“What is it?” Gabriel came up beside me.

“Death rides a pale horse.” I pointed to the car. “I think this could be it.”

“Classy ride. If I was a horseman, that’s how I’d want to do it.” Gabriel nodded appreciatively. He gestured to the restaurant which the car was parked in front of. A pizzeria. “And hey, look at that! Looks like Death wants to have pizza, too.”

I rolled my eyes but headed into the pizzeria cautiously with the scythe at the ready. The pizzeria was full of corpses with only one living soul in the whole place: a gaunt, almost skeletal man sat with his back to us, eating pizza. He had to be Death. As I approached him, the scythe started to heat up, reacting to the presence of its true master. Eventually, it was too hot to hold and I dropped it, wincing at how the scythe had burnt against my skin. The scythe reappeared on the table next to Death.

 

With his back still to us, he addressed us quietly in a voice full of authority. “Thanks for returning that. Castiel. Gabriel. I’ve been expecting you. Sit down with me. The pizza’s delicious.”

Hesitantly, we sat down with him. Gabriel disguised any fear he felt for the all-powerful being in front of us by beginning to stuff his face with pizza. I resisted the urge to sigh in exasperation, focusing more on Death.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you both for a while now. It took you long enough to find me.”

I frowned a little. “Thanks, I think?”

“Are you going to kill us now?” Gabriel said, his mouth full of pizza. “’Cause I really wouldn’t, if I were you.”

Death sighed. “You have an inflated sense of your importance. To a thing like me, a thing like you, well...think how you'd feel if a bacterium sat at your table and started to get snarky. This is one little planet in one tiny solar system in a galaxy that's barely out of its diapers. I'm old. Very old. So I invite you to contemplate how insignificant I find you.”

“How old are you?” I had to ask.

“As old as God. Maybe older. Neither of us can remember anymore.”

It was hard not to feel awestruck in the presence of something so old and powerful. “Then why do you want to speak to us? What do you want from us?”

“The leash around my neck removed. Raphael has me bound to him. Some unsavoury little spell. He has me under his control completely. I’m more powerful than you could possibly comprehend and I’m forced to obey the will of a bratty child having a temper tantrum. I hear you want to stop him.”

“You bet we do.” Gabriel said. “We’re going to shut that asshole away for good. We need your ring, though.”

“I’m inclined to give it to you.” Death pulled the ring from his finger and inspected it thoughtfully. “There are conditions, though. You have to do whatever it takes to put Raphael away. He’s dangerous to the natural order.”

“Of course.” Raphael had to be stopped. The safety of the planet, not to mention my family, was depending on it.

“Whatever it takes, Castiel. I mean it. You can’t hesitate, no matter if anyone gets dragged down to Hell with him. Your brother. Anna. Samael. Dean. I need your word.”

“Yes. I’ll do it.” I looked Death in the eye, praying that he didn’t see my uncertainty. Much as I wanted Raphael gone, I didn’t want to lose anyone I loved to Hell as the price for that victory. More than that, I would make sure of it.

“You’d better not be lying to me. You can’t cheat Death, you know.”


	10. Chapter 10

I fidgeted nervously with the four Horsemen’s rings. Death had explained what spell I needed to use to activate the entrance to the cave, but that didn’t help take away my nerves. There was so much riding on our stand-down in Stull Cemetery. I only hoped that I could do what needed to be done. The others were all preparing our arsenal of weapons while I was supposed to be going over the spell’s incantation. I had gone over the words a hundred times so was probably as prepared as I would ever be. Sensing my nervousness, Dean came over to join me on the study’s sofa.

“You holding up okay?”

“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

We were silent for a few moments. I’d been on life-threatening hunts before, but this was different. Death had been right. Raphael would be a tricky bastard to take down, and casualties were to be expected. The probabilities were too much against us there. Not all of us could make it out alive. Even if we did get out okay, Sam and Dean would have essentially damned their brother to Hell. Dean never talked about it, but I could see that being responsible for the deaths of members of his family weighed heavily on him. I knew what I had to do. I only hoped that the events of the day would not burden Dean too greatly.

“Dean…I just wanted to say, if this doesn’t work, thanks for everything.”

“Don’t. Don’t even think about that.” Dean frowned at me.

“I’m just being realistic.”

“We’re going to make it out of this, okay?” He took my hand and squeezed it gently. “So quit worrying. We’ll all be fine. I promise.”

“Okay. I trust you.” I smiled faintly back at him, not quite believing him.

 

……………………………

 

This was it. The final showdown.

 

Anna, Gabriel and I had stationed ourselves behind one of the crumbling funeral monuments in the disused cemetery, armed to the teeth with a stash of holy oil Molotov cocktails and angel blades. Sam and Dean traced out the sigils and prepared the herbs needed to summon Raphael. When they were finished, Dean gave a curt nod to signal that they were ready then began to chant in Enochian. He had barely finished when Raphael showed up, accompanied by a sizable posse.

“Even for you, Michael, this was a monumentally stupid idea.” He chuckled. “You and Lucifer are practically human now. What makes you think that you could take us down?”

Dean shrugged, “I like to think our give-them-hell attitude’ll be good enough. Dicks like you, you’ve got no guts. I’ve learnt my lesson now after all that time cooped up in Bible camp, just not the one you and your pals want to teach. We’re family, and family sticks together. If you’re not going to accept that, I guess we’ll just have to take you down.”

“You’re outnumbered. Stand down and I may be merciful.”

“Like Hell we will. Do it now, Cas!” Dean signalled to me.

I flung the rings onto the ground in front of Raphael and started to chant the incantation needed to open the Cage, “Bvtmon tabges babalon.” The ground disintegrated away, forming a deep dark hole which separated us from Raphael and his cronies.

Raphael looked down into the hole, his face unreadable.

“Surrender, Raphael, or we will throw you into the Cage.” Sam spoke quietly. “Please, brother. Don’t make us do this. You can’t imagine what it’s like down there.”

“You’re not my family anymore, Lucifer. You don’t get to boss me around.” Raphael’s face contorted with fury. “You’re going against Dad’s plan. We have no choice in this, don’t you see?”

“There’s always a choice.” Dean looked sadly at him. “And you made the wrong call, little brother. Sorry.”

 

Raphael’s forces started to move against us. Anna and Gabriel attacked as many as they could with the holy oil, leaving Dean and Sam fighting Raphael dangerously close to the Pit. I could see what Raphael had meant about their powers being drained. Although Dean and Sam were only fighting Raphael, they were barely holding their own against him. They would never be able to force him into the Cage. No one noticed as I began to move closer to where they were fighting, too caught up in their own battles. Raphael had managed to fling Sam to one side with a mere flick of his hand and was now beating Dean up with the full extent of his power. Dean’s face was covered in blood, but he wouldn’t show any weakness, maintaining eye contact with his brother.

 

I was practically standing beside them now. As Raphael raised his hand to bludgeon Dean once more, I placed my hands on his shoulders and with all the strength I could muster, pushed him into the Pit.

 

For a glorious moment, I thought it had worked. That Raphael was gone at last. Then I felt Raphael grasp my ankle desperately with an ironclad grip, the only thing stopping him from falling into the abyss. I couldn’t shake him off. He was too strong.

 

Dean could see in my eyes what I was planning on doing. Through choked breaths, he muttered, “No, Cas, don’t. You don’t have to do this. We can fix this. Please.”

But I knew he was wrong. I couldn’t be sure that Raphael wouldn’t save himself if I didn’t let myself be dragged down with him. I couldn’t be sure that my family would be safe. I knew this would hurt him. Nothing was worse than that realisation in that moment, seeing the look of utter pain on Dean’s face. But this was my choice. This was me choosing my path and not letting Destiny determine my fate.

“You can’t save everyone, Dean. This is my decision, not your’s.” I refused to look away from his face. I owed him that much at least.

 

Then I fell back into the abyss. Raphael tumbled down screaming with me.

 

The Pit closed up behind us.


	11. Chapter 11

Blackness.

 

That was all I saw and felt.

 

I heard a familiar voice dimly. “Cas? Dammit, Cas, you child. You should have listened to me.”

 

Dean. I tried to say his name, but my tongue felt like lead.

 

“Dean, I think he’s breathing again.” Gabriel’s voice spoke. “Come on, kiddo, you can do it. Wake up.”

 

Groggily, I opened my eyes to see my family crowded worriedly around my bedside. Gabriel, Anna, Charlie, Sam, Dean. They all started grinning at me when they saw that I was conscious.

 

“You gave us quite a scare, Cas.” Anna looked slightly reproachful.

 

“Yeah, you’re banned from ever jumping in any more gateways to Hell.” Gabriel tried to sound light-hearted, but it didn’t quite cover the obvious relief in his voice.

 

“I’ll do my best.” My voice was even more gravelly than usual and it was an effort to speak. “How did you get me back? Is Raphael…?”

 

Everyone looked a little uncomfortable at my question. “He’s still in Hell. Don’t worry about him,” Sam said with a hint of sadness. It was easy to forget at times that Raphael had been his brother, after all. Condemning him to Hell can’t have been easy for the brothers.

“Why don’t you come outside for some fresh air? Sammy and I’ll explain it to you then?” Dean suggested.

 

That didn’t sound good. With a feeling of some foreboding, I let them help me out onto the porch, where we sat down together.

“What did you do to get me out?” I repeated my question and looked at them both intently. “Because if you made any deals…”

Dean and Sam exchanged a look. “Nah, don’t worry about that. We’re not stupid. But, yeah, Sam and I were able to yank you out of the Cage.”

“I thought that was impossible.”

“Nearly impossible.” Sam corrected me. “The heavenly rulebook wasn’t enough to stop us from at least trying to break into the Cage to bust you out. Burnt up all our remaining grace to do it, though. Us all getting back okay was a close thing.”

“You’re both human?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Looks like you’re stuck with us, for now at least.” Dean chuckled.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. What happens to us now, then?” I asked him.

“Well, Charlie’s clearing things up in Heaven. Some angels are putting up a bit of a fight, but she should be okay. Sam and I figured that we might go do some hunting, send some black-eyed sons of bitches back to Hell and help people out. You could come with us. If you want, that is?”

“Of course that’s what I want. You’re family now.” I kissed Dean lightly on the cheek. “I guess we can make our own future now.”

Dean smiled. “Yeah, I guess so. We ripped up the rule book, Cas. No more of this destiny crap. Just free will.”

 

…………………………

 

Little did we know it at the time, but we were being watched in secret. A dark-haired man with brown eyes in a scruffy leather jacket leant against his truck and stared intently after Sam and Dean as they headed back inside the house. “I’m proud of you boys.” He smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, thank you so much for taking the time to read this fic! This was my first ever adventure in writing fanfiction and it's been an absolutely fantastic experience. If you want to come and say Hi and talk about this story or general Destiel awesomeness, you can find me on tumblr under the url consultingcas.


End file.
